The 0 reasons why you should use numbers in your titles

We live in a paradoxical world. Technology is binary, logical, essentially deterministic. And yet the interconnected world it has helped create is unpredictable, unstable, almost wild. We crave control, we covet closure. We cannot help to feel magnetically lured by the promise of certainty. As incongruous as it may sound, we require unequivocal truths in a universe that is increasingly honest about its duality.

A title such as The 7 ways to set your apartment on fire presages a definite answer to your quest for information. No more researching online. Problem will be solved in the best possible way. After reading the post, we will be free to indulge in yet another fruitful activity. The productivity grail seems to get near.

But numbers are not the sole culprit of the oversimplification illusion. When we read a header such as This is why you should start barking back at your dog or Learn how to comb your turtle, we are falling in the same trap. The world is complex, ambiguous, unfathomable. And so are most of the subjects we want to learn about. From politics to holidays, expect no certainty. Neither the writer nor you will ever know why or how. Face it, embrace complexity. Save your inner child for more pleasurable activities than reading a blob of unimportant information on the treacherous web.