“It is Luring You to Click on the Link with False Advertising” - Mental Models of Clickbait and its Impact on User’s Perceptions and Behavior Towards Clickbait Warnings

Authors

Ankit Shrestha, Utah State UniversityFollow
Arezou Behfar, Utah State UniversityFollow
Mahdi Nasrullah Al-Ameen, Utah State UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Author ORCID Identifier

Ankit Shrestha https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9012-6146

Arezou Behfar https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8547-7868

Mahdi Nasrullah Al-Ameen https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5764-2253

Journal/Book Title/Conference

International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction

Volume

41

Issue

4

Publisher

Taylor & Francis Inc.

Publication Date

3-8-2024

Journal Article Version

Accepted Manuscript

First Page

2352

Last Page

2370

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

Abstract

Clickbait, a social engineering attack performed through social media, tricks users through sensationalized or misleading posts into clicking on links that direct them to malicious websites. With the recent boom in social media, clickbait has become a substantial security concern, necessitating efforts from platforms and academia to control it. Despite these attempts, clickbait is effective due to the lack of users’ knowledge. Therefore, we explore user mental models (thought processes about how something works) about clickbait to analyze their deficiencies and their influences on users’ behavior towards clickbait warnings. To this end, we conducted an online study with 770 participants over MTurk to generate user mental models about clickbait and to evaluate the clickbait warnings conveying harm. Our findings suggest that a large portion of users have a simple mental model that fails to comprehend the dangers of clickbait, indicating the importance of warnings in supporting and educating users. Overall, our studies provide valuable insights into understanding the impact of clickbait mental models on users’ online security behavior in social media and offer guidelines for future research in these directions.

Comments

This is an Accepted Manuscript version of the following article, accepted for publication in International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction. Shrestha, Ankit, et al. ““It Is Luring You to Click on the Link with False Advertising” - Mental Models of Clickbait and Its Impact on User’s Perceptions and Behavior towards Clickbait Warnings.” International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 8 Mar. 2024, pp. 2352–2370, https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2024.2323248.. It is deposited under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Recommended Citation

Shrestha, Ankit, et al. ““It Is Luring You to Click on the Link with False Advertising” - Mental Models of Clickbait and Its Impact on User’s Perceptions and Behavior towards Clickbait Warnings.” International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 8 Mar. 2024, pp. 2352–2370, https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2024.2323248.