Jan-Lukas Else

Thoughts of an IT expert

The Pain of Reading Click-Bait

Published on in Medium Archive
Updated on
Short link: https://b.jlel.se/s/350
⚠️ This entry is already over one year old. It may no longer be up to date. Opinions may have changed. When I wrote this post, I was only 17 years old!

Ups, is this click-bait too?

When I rethink, what I’m doing on Facebook, Twitter and even Medium, it’s somehow a very sad story. I’m scrolling through an endless list of trash. TRASH. In the truest sense of the word.


I usually get up around 7 or 8 o’clock in the morning. First I make myself ready in the bathroom, eat some breakfast and then turn on my laptop or just sit down and take my smartphone to get up-to-date.

There’s this question in my head: Should I open Facebook, Twitter, Medium or some other news sites first? I decide to first read some non-click-bait German technical blogs first. The niche I’m very interested in.

After having that done, I answer the previous question with the simple decision: All of them. If I’m using my laptop or another PC, I just open a couple of taps and type each URL in the address bar, so that the other pages can load in the background. On my phone I just use the according apps.

Often I start browsing Facebook. A couple of friends were marked and commented on some memes. It seems this memes should be funny, but sometime they are just stupid. Jokes about people, who are “different”, failed in life or other “funny” life moments. Pretty sad, if we think about Mark Zuckerberg’s vision about what Facebook should be. A global community, where you come together with family, friends and like-minded people? Ok, most of my family members don’t use Facebook, but there are friends on this platform though.

After quitting Facebook, maybe even clicking on some Click-Bait (which I realize too late, that it’s just wanting me to click and watching some annoying ads), I continue with Twitter.

I like Twitter more than Facebook. Mostly because I just follow people there, who I like to follow, because they have common interests with me or whatever and almost nobody of the people I know IRL are there. Not that I wouldn’t follow them (I probably would — but because Twitter seems to lose attention, it’s less and less important to join), but this way I don’t need to see all that meme stuff etc.

But of course, Twitter is full of unfunny things, stupid jokes and click-baiting headlines too. How should it be else? Sometimes I click on them, sometimes not.


But now the hard part comes: Medium is a click-bait liking place too!

I don’t want to offend anyone, but I can’t read all this articles, telling me how to live my life too get a better one, anymore. I don’t want to read, how writing each day for X months, changed the life so much. Was the writers life so poor before, that they need to start writing everyday, to find some meaning in life?

I can’t read this articles, telling me how to become a pro in everything within a few days. Or about Donald Trump.

Save me from this TRASH!


I want to read:

  • stories, that inspire me. Giving insights about things, telling me experiences or showing perspectives on things.

  • stories, that give actual content, like some tips about how to do that or that better.

  • stories, that are created by heart and not by the hope for clicks.

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Jan-Lukas Else
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