Response to: “The Willpower Trick”

 This blog was released on Wired by Jonah Lehrer on January 9^th 2012. Lehrer starts his blog by targeting a large demographic: those who have been unable to uphold New Year's resolutions. He determines that broken resolutions are the result of our feeble minds and willpower. One highlighted theory is that humans have a threshold of information that they can hold before their willpower begins to weaken. This theory is supported in an experiment by Baba Shiv, a behavioral economist at Stanford University. The experiment demonstrates possible negative dieting behavior based on outside stresses. Lehrer goes on to express that willpower is not based on moral fiber or the ability to resist temptation, but instead the ability to remove temptation from the equation. Those who are able to see the difference and and remove temptation are typically more successful in achieving their goals

Wired is a site that is meant to have both attractive content and cosmetics. Bloggers express their ideas in terms that lay people can all understand on topics that proves interesting to a broad audience. As I read more blogs on Wired, I have noticed that most of the content follows a general pattern: A colorful and attractive background and a picture that exaggerates an already misleading title. This blog in particular is titled “The Willpower Trick” when in reality there is no trick to increasing willpower, and the illustration symbolizes the concept of “Jedi mind tricks”.

As misleading as the title and illustrations may be, Lehrer is able to properly use his hook and keep the audience interested. Once the storm troopers catch the reader's eye, and the title suggests that Jedi secrets will be revealed, the attracted reader will stumble into a first paragraph that strays toward a more defined topic. However, instead of being a turn-off, simply speaking about New Year's resolutions and claiming to have the answers for successful dieting and weight loss pulls the reader in even further.