Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
The study, as I read it (see link in #15) takes as it starting point that, based on past research, the great majority of readers think they dislike most spoilers. Then it shows that a bit more than half the half the readers actually do like most spoilers. This thread confirms the starting point, but can tell us nothing about the actuality.
I just found a more recent study by the same authors, with more evidence plus an attempt to explain why most readers like the spoiled stories. Also, they discovered one type of story UC San Diego students do not like to be spoiled. See:
http://pages.ucsd.edu/~nchristenfeld...20Spoilers.pdf |
I think one flaw with the study is that it doesn't take into account the interest in the story or the expected surprise of a reveal.
If I were a participant, and reading short stories I care nothing about, I might say that I liked the "spoiled" stories better as well. However, that doesn't really correlate into real world situations with entertainment we specifically choose to consume and care more about. I think that all the study really shows is that many people don't mind, and maybe even enjoy, spoilers on things they don't care very much about.
When it comes to what we're actually really interested in reading (or watching), I would think that many less people would "enjoy" spoilers. For instance, as a study, let's find the next "The Sixth Sense" or "The Usual Suspects" type film, a really popular one that many people want to see, weed out any study participants not interested in seeing it, then spoil the film beforehand for a third of the audience, and reveal the ending in a flashback early on for a third of the audience, and let the last third watch it as normal.
Then let us measure responses on spoilers and we may find very different results compared to the study referenced in this thread.