The question at the heart of a study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania, which involved analysing thousands of New York Times articles and checking the site’s “most emailed” articles list every 15 minutes for six months.

Researchers found that people preferred emailing positive rather than negatively- themed articles and long articles on “intellectually challenging topics” with science articles making the “most emailed” list more frequently than the study had anticipated.

There’s plenty more analysis on what makes a reader email a story in the full story at this link…