Q: Why Do We Love Online News Quizzes? A: Because They Make Us Smarter

Patti Wolter, a journalism professor at Northwestern University, describes quizzes as a form of service journalism. “I would applaud quizzes that have reporting and information embedded in them,” she says. “All we’re talking about is, what is the wrapper or the packaging that makes it more likely for the reader to engage? In a world in which every kind of media, news or otherwise, is really hunting for different ways of getting people to click it, being creative around story format is a strong strategy.”

In fact, the quiz format in particular may prove to be a better way to tell certain stories, according to Dowling. Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal published a poll titled “What Type of Voter Are You?” to share findings from a research study. The Washington Post published “Can you spot bad financial advice on TikTok?” to draw attention to, and help readers identify, potentially harmful misinformation on social media.

Publishing information in the form of a quiz can also add depth to the scope of the reporting, Dowling says. “It forces a varied look at things. Your quiz is going to have some sort of an output that tells you that there are other ways that others could have answered that quiz. And so the sociological takeaway, I think, is diversifying. I think it’s healthy because I got to think about myself vis-a-vis others.”

Social Studies

The omnipresence of online quizzes also gives the news media a way to combat one of its most pressing challenges: the mass migration of readers to social media. The same institutions pushing quizzes are slowly losing their audiences to social platforms, where news is just one of the many content types on offer.

According to a study from Pew published in April, 43 percent of American TikTok users say they get their news on TikTok. Pew also reported, in February, that those who get their news on social media cite convenience as the primary benefit. “If, on any given day, I want to know what’s happening in the Middle East, I want to know what’s going on with Congress, I’m looking for a new recipe, I’m looking for a creative way to work out,” says Wolter, “any given media outlet wants me to satisfy as many, many of those items on their site.”

According to the same Pew study, 40 percent of Americans who get news from social media expressed concern about the potential for inaccurate information. In theory, a news publication’s use of diverse storytelling formats should offer the same one-stop-shop convenience as social media, but provide content produced with high editorial standards.

Migration to social media indicates a failure on the part of the journalism industry to reclaim the connection with readers that’s been co-opted by social media, says Rawiya Kameir, an assistant professor of journalism at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. “There’s an absence, in a lot of publications, of community in a comment section, or other kinds of direct engagement that we see on social,” she says, which exposes a need to “figure out how to capture community and bring it back to the publications themselves.”

Quizzes generally deal with light-hearted topics, giving readers permission to momentarily abandon the often distressing news cycle and engage in some introspection, even within the context of the news. The Washington Post’s “Are you ready to buy a house?” quiz, for example, informs readers of relevant bits of news related to homeownership, like the current mortgage rate and the percentage of homes bought in cash.

“We forget that a lot of people also turn to these publications for entertainment and for enlightenment and for things other than pure life-or-death information,” says Kameir. “From the reader’s perspective, the benefits of quizzes are multifold. They’re fun, they’re engaging, they are a way to understand ourselves and each other a little bit better.”