I have written for this wonderful website for less than a year and from a website that promotes creativity and diversity in every way possible, from the kinds of people we try to attract to the site and the kinds of articles posted on a daily basis.

I love this website because it has allowed me to create content regardless of whether or not it was a piece based solely on my opinion (such as my article on what is wrong with the American education system) or a five minute read that basically allowed me to call out Snapchat for my own enjoyment and the entertainment of others. However, there is one thing no writer should allow themselves to accept and that is the idea of click bait.

For those of you who do not know, click bait is the use of images, words, etc. to elicit a response, preferably clicking on an article to gain views from an audience. This practice is alive and well on all web sites such as YouTube, BuzzFeed, etc., but it is also alive and well here on Odyssey. Again, I love this website, but no one should have to scroll through the homepage and see nothing but click bait articles.

These articles more often than not spread misinformation among the people that read it, often having no supporting facts and using an "I'm a writer just trust me," ideology. Yes, I have written an article based on my opinion and I will openly admit that it was, but you cannot claim your opinion as fact (which I never have) and expect people not to call you out on it. I have no problem with people writing opinion based articles, but I do have a problem with writers that spread misinformation and use click bait to do so.

Let's say as an example, that I decided to write an article about how Facebook compares to every other social media site and I believed that Instagram is far less used by those who consume content on social media daily. If I used "Instagram's Numbers Are Dropping!?" as my title most people would click on that article because of course there is no way this would occur in their minds, yet when they finally read through the article they see it is simply my opinion. That has already given my page a view and that is all I would be chasing after, no facts needed.

It is sad and disappointing when someone takes words out of context, uses pictures that only enrage an audience, and has no regard for the truth. It is also sad and disappointing to see this in not only people who write for this website but also in main stream media such as Fox, CNN, MSNBC, etc. It is sad and disappointing that in the "Information Age" we see people that do nothing but spread misinformation through click bait, this needs to stop.