Predicting Reopening Dates Using Machine Learning
You could be here due to a number of reasons. You could be a CS geek who wants to know the limitless possibilities of ML, you could be one of our regular readers or you are done with quarantine and desperately want to come back to college. I hear every one of you guys!
Before you scroll down or leave this page, wait. Let me tell you a sad story. While it might be sad, it’s also interesting. It’s been around five months since I joined PaperKin as a sub-editor. I mostly assist Ema Arun in editing the content we get. It’s fun to work with her and I like the job. We release articles twice every week and like hungry puppies (the cute ones) we constantly check how many people read our content every now and then. Lately we have been trying to attract more readers to PaperKin. Constantly pressuring our content writers, spamming personal chats and sending sad stickers to each other, we did everything we could. The result wasn’t great.
There was no letting down my chief editor and desperate times called for desperate measures. The sub-editor decided to become the writer.
Now, I started thinking about what could possibly bring more people over here to read. Two things came to mind. One, people are done. They want to come back to college. Two, many have been doing a lot of online courses to stack up on their resume. Also, Machine Learning is the new buzzword. Now combine one and two together. Welcome to the title of our article “Predicting Reopening Dates Using Machine Learning”!
Let’s go on to understand why someone would click on such a title. They might want to learn more about ML or just get to know about when they’ll get to come back. In both the cases mentioned, something is common. Curiosity. A thirst to know what’s inside. The title was structured in a way you couldn’t resist clicking on it. Guys, that’s what we call a clickbait, and you just fell for one!
Clickbaiting is the intentional act of over-promising or otherwise misrepresenting — in a headline, on social media, in an image, or some combination — what you’re going to find when you read a story on the web.
Look at these two headlines. “You won’t believe what Robert Downey Jr. did to get the role of Iron Man!”. “Five scientifically proven ways to become fair”.
Believe it or not, more than 75% of the people who come across headlines like these are likely to click them. If you think about it, would it hurt to know what Robert Downey Jr. actually did to become Iron Man? And I mean, if one click is going to make me fair, I might as well give it a try. Well, these are classic examples of clickbaits. They give you just enough information to make you curious, but not enough to actually satisfy your need. Clickbaiting is a deliberate act of over-promising and misleading. But there is no doubt when used in a proper manner, it can do the work of luring in viewers. Here “proper” is what draws the line between ethical and unethical.
Clickbait is not a 21st century idea
“Clickbait” might be a relatively new word. But the act of tricking customers into believing a false idea and then under-doing goes long back in time. One such fraud is bait-and-switch. Initially customers are baited by advertising goods and services at a very low price but when they visit the store, the advertised products are not available and they are forced to buy similar products of higher price. This is a well calculated move to make customers buy substituted goods, compelling them to be satisfied with what is available as an alternative for the disappointment in not receiving any goods.
Another one of clickbait’s senior relative is yellow journalism.
To Fix Fake News, Look to Yellow Journalism.
Let me surprise you. Yellow journalism is an “American” term for journalism with little or no valid content and that uses striking headlines just to increase sales. Yes, you read that right, it’s not an Indian term! I mean, we put in all that effort and in the end it’s always America.
If you can balance the right amount of exaggeration and sensationalism, there you go, that’s Yellow Journalism. The term was coined in the mid 1890s. This time witnessed a battle between two newspapers New York World and New York Journal. Even though both the newspapers delivered actual content they were accused of amplifying the news they provided. An English magazine in 1898 noted, “All American journalism is not ‘yellow’, though all strictly ‘up-to-date’ yellow journalism is American!”
Erwin Wardman, the then editor of New York Press was the one to use this term. But evidence suggests that the same and similar words were used by many others. Wardman’s usage of yellow journalism stated that it was a modification of defamations done earlier. Words like tabloid journalism and checkbook journalism carry the same meaning.
With technology advancing day by day, clickbaits are more common. Even though not considered ethical, clickbaits are used for the sole purpose of page views. To stay in the business world, there is a constant need to make sure that your content reaches the target audience. Massive companies like Facebook and Google constantly update and change their algorithms. In situations like those, the path might change, but people’s curiosity remains the same. Also, publishers are not the only one using clickbaits for their advantage. Huge corporate agencies and even political parties use clickbaits to mislead their viewers. Firms that assess their success using clicks and retweets overuse the same.
It’s a perverse incentive system that pays no mind to whether clickbait achieves long-term company goals. In other words, it ‘works’ in their tiny fiefdom.
Clickbaits are always associated with fake news and online fraud. But if the promised content is delivered, clickbaits can become a strong ethical tool for marketing. It delivers what is most essential, attention. Hence clickbaits are not a strict no-no. There is no correct answer to “Are clickbaits bad?”. In the end, it is simple. Use headlines that capture attention and create a bait. When clicked, make sure you deliver the content you promised, unlike us.
That’s our story on clickbaits. Now coming back to our title again. When could college possibly reopen? To be honest, I really don’t know. If you do, let us know.
If you are still annoyed about not giving you the content that we promised, I can help you with that. Take this article to every social media. Rant about how a blog tricked you into reading their article using the hashtag #PaperKin. That will teach us a lesson for sure.
Liked this article? Read our ‘Thought trains’ section for more such articles! Here’s a trending one from us!
P. S: That’s not a clickbait.
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