Infographic: Why Your Brain Loves Infographics (And Your Readers Do Too)

Here at Contently, we love a good infographic. So, when we found an infographic about infographics, produced by NeoMam Studios, we were more than a little excited. As it turns out, there are solid scientific reasons why we love infographics, and it all comes down to our brains.

Visualized information as a whole has increased over 9,000 percent since 2007. It makes sense: The visuals help cut through the information overload we get from carrying humanity’s collected knowledge (and a ton of cat pictures) in our pockets. In fact, as the chart shows, we’re receiving about five times as much information now as we did in 1986. Images help us drill past this noise since it takes minimal time to understand a visual—only 1/10th of a second to be exact.

Visuals are also a great way to communicate with your readers, since they increase the willingness to read in the first place. That information will also have staying power, since they’ve been shown to help with reader comprehension.

There are a lot of reasons to be crazy about infographics, so treat yourself to a scroll through this one—you’ll even learn why exactly you couldn’t resist clicking on this story.