Before Instagram and TikTok were founded and social media feeds had endless scroll driven by algorithms, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania conducted a study on The New York Times articles readers shared the most.
Over three months in 2008, they tracked the Times’ homepage every 15 minutes and recorded articles that appeared on the “most-emailed” list. In all, they captured 7500 stories, from which they sampled 3000 to figure out what made them “go viral”.
Gift articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe.
