GLOSSARY
| a good knowledge of a particular subject | Familiarity |
| to consider or remember something when judging a situation | take something into account |
| making you think seriously about a particular subject | thought-provoking |
A. Why do people enjoy fiction? Some people are under the impression that it's because we are in suspense about what is going lo happen, so someone actually telling you the plot would completely spoil the experience. This is why we refer to a newspaper article or blog with that kind of information as a 'spoiler'. News sites are usually careful to at least signal that there are spoilers in their reviews, and when an important plot line gets spoilt, there's a huge fuss online. But, it's also clear that some people actually love reading spoilers. Why is this?
B. You might be surprised to learn that research would actually suggest the opposite, that spoilers can in fact enhance our experience. In a study, participants were divided into two groups and each group was given the same stories to read. In addition, the second group were also given brief introductions which subtly 'spoilt' the plots. You might assume that the first group found the stories more engaging, buf surprisingly, it was the second group who claimed the greatest reading satisfaction. It could be said that when we love a book, we often read it again - sometimes many times. We aren't doing this to find out what happens.
In all likelihood, we enjoy il more the second time because we are free to notice more of the delail. Knowing what happens at the end of great classic works of fiction isn't going to ruin them.
C. This research was followed up two years later. However, this time participants were stopped from reading the stories before they had finished and asked about their enjoyment at that point. It was argued that most people think that spoilers only have an impact on the reader's reaction to the end of the story, but this study showed that even halfway through the story, the participants who had read the spoilers were still finding the stories more engaging than those who didn't know what was going to happen. It could be said that there is plenty of evidence that some familiarity with a work of art enables you to appreciate it more.
D. However, a more recent study found that spoilers did negatively affect people's enjoyment. 412 university students were given several short stories. Before they read them, they were given summaries of the stories, some of which gave away the ending on purpose. The study found that the stories that had been 'spoiled' were considered to be less thought-provoking.
E. Interestingly, the research carried out showed that the kind of people who are keen to avoid spoilers by accident tend to have a particular personality type. They are very emotionally involved with what they are reading. People who are less emotionally connected with the characters are happy to know about what is going to happen because it requires less effort on their part.
F. Finally, we should take into account how much the Internet has changed our viewing habits. Gone are the days when everyone would watch the same thing at the same time and then talk about it the next day. Now, everyone is watching al different times across the world, and a lot of the discussion is happening in online communities. Maybe discussing spoilers is all part of the fun?
