What heuristic or bias is at play when drawing conclusions from headlines only? I'm wondering why many people just read headlines when they scroll through social media and make up their minds based on this? What bias or heuristic is at play? Why don't people read the article?
I have considered availability bias because people will use the information that is available to them but that doesn't seem to capture the whole phenomenon. Why don't people click on the article to read it and assume they know the whole story based on the few words contained in the headline?
If the headline confirms a strongly held prior belief, or is antithetical to prior beliefs, then no need to read.
Consider an article titled, 'the world is round' ... no need to read it as I already believe that.
An alternate title 'the world is flat' ... no need to read that either.
An article 'the world is changing' may pique my interest and cause me to read further.
I wonder whether any heuristic or bias is at play, or whether an evaluation mechanism that judges the perceived benefit of reading the article versus the time opportunity cost of engaging with it.