Dear Internet,
We've had to put up with your demands for spoiler alerts, and your complaints when a detail of a movie or TV show you haven't seen or (more rarely) a book you haven't read is inadvertently divulged, for some time now.
I suppose we understand when a movie has a serious plot twist, like Witness for the Prosecution, The Usual Suspects or The Sixth Sense. Finding out about it before you get a chance to see it prevents you from enjoying the surprise.
But sometimes you go too far. I’ve seen you demand spoiler alerts for books published more than 50 years ago. I’ve even seen you get upset when results from the Olympics were revealed, because you lived in the U.S. and NBC’s Olympic coverage was tape-delayed.
I've long wished you'd STFU already about the spoilers. I'm so tired of having discussions about every aspect of our culture held hostage by the last person to get around to seeing or reading it, and of having “spoiler” expand from avoiding discussions of plot twists to, well, any aspect of the story.
Now, though, I've got SCIENCE—well, psychology, which is kind of like science, though not nearly as good—on my side.
Psychologists from UC San Diego report that, in three experiments, subjects who had a story “spoiled” before reading it did not have that story ruined. In fact, according to the university press release, “[s]ubjects significantly preferred the spoiled versions of ironic-twist stories, where, for example, it was revealed before reading that a condemned man’s daring escape is all a fantasy before the noose snaps tight around his neck.”
Wait, what? They liked it more?
The same held true for mysteries. Knowing ahead of time that Poirot will discover that the apparent target of attempted murder is, in fact, the perpetrator not only didn’t hurt enjoyment of the story but actually improved it.
Subjects liked the literary, evocative stories least overall, but still preferred the spoiled versions over the unspoiled ones.
Why? The answers go beyond the scope of the study, but one possibility is perhaps the simplest one: that plot is overrated.
(My emphasis.)
We read and we watch for reasons other than finding out what happens next. Otherwise we’d never reread a book, or watch a movie more than once. Getting the plot aspects out of the way, the researchers say, allows you to focus on other aspects of the story—say, the writing, the acting, or even the special effects. There’s more to art than plot twists.
So enough about the spoilers, okay? Otherwise, I’m going to have to tell you who Luke Skywalker’s father is. I swear you won’t see that one coming.
Your pal,
Jonathan
(Via io9.)