Either that we actively (doubtful) ignore non-click-bait, more that we are programmed (in some sense) to only pay attention to click-bait.
It is genuinely difficult to ignore things which sound alarming but usually either nonsense or much less alarming, than it is to actively investigate everything, whether it seems alarming or not.
The later is much more difficult but also a lot more fruitful - it is why Google News was so good, a simple collation of all news instead of only click-bait-y news, and why it is genuinely terrible now (mostly dominated by click-bait-y news again).
And again, an illustration of active versus passive - actively filtering google news feeds was fruitful, passively filtering led to algorithmic optimizations which ultimately favored high click counts and therefore more click-bait-y news...and ultimately at this point to being "click-bait highlights of the day", akin to some nonsense like yahoo or msn news.
It is genuinely difficult to ignore things which sound alarming but usually either nonsense or much less alarming, than it is to actively investigate everything, whether it seems alarming or not.
The later is much more difficult but also a lot more fruitful - it is why Google News was so good, a simple collation of all news instead of only click-bait-y news, and why it is genuinely terrible now (mostly dominated by click-bait-y news again).
And again, an illustration of active versus passive - actively filtering google news feeds was fruitful, passively filtering led to algorithmic optimizations which ultimately favored high click counts and therefore more click-bait-y news...and ultimately at this point to being "click-bait highlights of the day", akin to some nonsense like yahoo or msn news.