To provoke outrage is the point of rage bait. Research in communication is starting to explain how rage bait hacks the way our brains decide what we choose to read, watch and even click and swipe online. What’s more, the worse we feel, the more we seem to prefer it.

New research identified 10 key features of clickbait journalism on social media and compared its use between digital-native news media and legacy news media outlets. The study confirmed that digital-native media outlets are much more likely to use clickbait, and that it really does drive engagement in the form of likes and reposts, but may accelerate a decline in media trust.