Spoiler alert! Spoilers actually increase enjoyment of stories.

[ninasafiri]

Story Spoilers Don’t Spoil Stories.

“The enjoyment of fiction through books, television, and movies may depend, in part, on the psychological experience of suspense. Spoilers give away endings before stories begin, and may thereby diminish suspense and impair enjoyment; indeed, as the term suggests, readers go to considerable lengths to avoid

Comments

[dharmavati]

Haha, as a person who peeks at the end of a book as she is reading, I can corroborate this scientific data. :D

[star_sailor13]

So true! When I'm reading a particularly tense part of a book, I always find myself skipping ahead two or three pages just to check how that bit turns out :D It always makes for better reading because I focus more on what's actually happening rather than skim-reading just to know what happens faster.

[tresa_cho]

God I love spoilers. It makes me even MORE excited to read a book. Hah! Now I can just point to this when someone yells at me for spoiling them.

[owlsie]

One study on a few people doesn't prove all that much.

[tresa_cho]

I was being facetious, but okay.

[owlsie]

Yippee?

[owlsie]

Not for me it doesn't. I hate spoilers, and I've never enjoyed a story much when it's been spoiled for me [whether I purposely sought out spoilers or had it spoiled by bastards.]

[tinchen]

I agree. If the story is set up that way it's fine (for example it begins with the murderer being identified and then you see the duell unfold how they are caught). It works for some stories. Of course, when I pick up a silly romance novel I expect the heroine to marry or whatever, but I enjoy far more being unspoiled and actually surprised at how the story unfolds. With a certain book, where even the yellowpress decided to spoil people I was very glad when I finally read about the character dying and could read the rest unspoiled and enjoy being surprised and shocked!

[ayashi]

yeah same here! It can work when the author does it on purpose, but having some jackass on the internet spoil something for me really makes me upset, and I definitely don't feel as though I enjoy it as much.

[wumples]

I also agree. I have a "friend" who regularly ruins the endings of television shows, movies, and books - and I have given up on watching or reading whatever it is he's ruined just because I can't bear to finish it knowing the big stuff!

[keeni84]

I'm confused by this.

Are they talking about spoilers like someone screaming out: "Snape kills Dumbledore!", or are they talking about spoilers where the author has actually presented an idea/scene that lends to a future part of the story?

And isn't there a difference between asking to be spoiled and being spoiled when you didn't ask for it?

[art_house_queen]

"Snape kills Dumbledore!"

Hahaha, OMG. Those were epic times.

[hikerpoet]

I was managing a bookstore at the time and I was in the bathroom and these two tweens were snapping at each other. One was yelling, "It's serious! It's serious!" And the other one was like, "Shut up shut up shutupshutupSHUTUP! I thought they were just talking about something random. Then I realized the first kid was saying, "It's Sirius!" and she was spoiling the book for us. Damn it

[tinchen]

It really sounds as if they talk about two diffrent concepts! JIt's just to simple going from "people like to re-read books" to "Spoilers are great", it is a bit of a stretch.