Clickitus

Clickitus 

It's a sad disability affecting over 50% of Americans. All our lives are touched in some way by someone suffering this affliction.

The inability to not click 'flashy things' on the Internet. The inability to not click that, "You May Have Won!" email. The inability to not distinguish between Spam and Adware,...and legitimate links.

Do you or someone you know suffer from this affliction?

Is there help? Is there hope?

Here are some warning signs to see if you or someone you love suffers from Clickitus.

• They don't have MalwareBytes on their computer
• Or CCleaner
• Or Spybot S&D
• They use McAfee or something that borders on a virus,..as an anti-virus
• They routinely ask you to fix or look at their computer because it's acting, "funny." 
• When at a party or BBQ and it's known you're, "Good with computers" they're the stranger that asks you to look at their computer.

It's a sad, common affliction. But it doesn't have to be that way. 

The internet is wrought with peril and hidden alleys hiding in plain sight. It's up to the user to become savvy enough not to click on every freaking thing they see. Does it look like an Ad? Does it smell like an Ad? If you scroll all the way to the top of the 'MensHealth' page do you see 'ad' in tiny letters hiding all the way at the top?

Do you see something flashing and annoying? Saying 'Click to Win' or 'Punch the Monkey!' (remember that one?) ...don't click that stuff. 

Nowadays with the plethora of Ad-Blocking extensions there's almost no excuse for some of this stuff even taking up your screen real-estate or bandwidth. Just kill it before it even displays. 

A friend told me something weeks ago that really stuck, "There's two kinds of people in the world. Those who click on everything,..and those who Don't. Those who DO......usually have problems with their computer." 

...I can't argue that because in my experience he's 100% right. 

So I implore you if you find yourself having constant computer problems, to take a serious look at your browsing habits and ask yourself if you suffer from Clickitus. 

lets see what we've learned....

Did you click one of them? 

...that's a shame,..you have Clickitus. But it's not fatal,..there's hope.

Go back to the beginning of this post and read it again...and again..until you're cured. 

Inoculate yourself.

Internet Clickbait Slideshows Are Just The Worst

We've all seen them. Those silly links at the bottom of stories and articles hollering for our attention. Usually looking something like...

(yeah I made 'em up)

And in our weaker moments we fall for a clickbait headline and get pulled into a Web-Design sewer faster than Pennywise can warn us, "it all floats down here." 

But even this I'm not complaining about. We made the choice. It's what follows after that makes you hate Arrows and start wondering what kind of sick person designs some of these sites.

You'll click on a '5 Things' list and be taken to a page that lists 'Thing #1',..usually with a little picture,..a small amount of text under it,..and about 20 ads.

This is particularly monstrous on smart phones I've noticed. Most Desk/Laptops are running good AdBlockers and such, and many of those pages will display as one single page with a complete list.... but not on mobile.

Where it gets downright evil is when you scroll down and see an Arrow pointing right. Oh...wait a second,..there's two,..no....four arrows all pointing right?

Which Arrow is the second part of the Slideshow? This is horrible. I see one VERY LARGE arrow has 'Ad' written very tiny underneath it.  ...You Sir are a bastard and should be ashamed of yourself.

I see a big blue arrow, a big red arrow, a banner ad that has arrows pointing in both directions,..and in very small text way at the bottom of the page hidden, beneath a banner and above the footer I see, 'Next --> '

Am I expected to thread this needle 20 more times?

I can't believe people get paid to inflict this kind of horror on other people.

It's the shadiest, most distasteful and downright gross trend I've seen on the internet lately. And so many sites seem to be doing it.

So not only are you intentionally trying to deceive people into clicking an Ad,...you're destroying their monthly (phone) bandwidth by forcing them to download 20 full pages of Ads to see your '20 Things' list,...(and how come it usually ends up being more like 23 pages with a couple 'Full Page Ads' thrown in the middle?)

....and I thought..

was the worst it could get. 

They need to make one of those pages and title it: 32 Ways To Get Carpal Tunnel Syndrome! 

...by the end of the list after you've sat there and clicked through 37 pages (5 extra for extra Ads)....there you go. Enjoy your Carpal Tunnel.  Make sure to click their embedded 'Like' button for that one. extra. click!

There's not a whole lot we can do about Web-Design trends really. But I do know when I stumble across a site using these Clickbait/Full-O-Ads techniques I try to make a note of them and essentially blacklist them from my computers.

And I've never made it all the way through a list because I get tired of clicking 'Next' over and over and having to wait for all the Ads to load. You read the little snippet of text under the picture and then you have to wait for all the Ads before 'Next' even works.

What a joke.