Sharing of anything valuable is indeed a great deed. It has great reward for those people who possess knowledge and then share it with others. From ages, people share information, knowledge with one another. Earlier, people passed on information through word of mouth or paper. The passing on of any content whether oral, written, visual or symbolic, will have impact and inspire others only if it is clearly understood. In the past, people took benefits of the only available sources like printed material. Sharing of anything was not merely done for pretention or glamour. People enjoyed and absorbed the message fully and were not in haste to share. First, they understood the content, and only after considering its worth then they decided to share with the targeted audience. Passing on information without the clear understanding is dangerous and may not be useful for others. As Pope has rightly said, “A little learning is a dangerous thing.” if it is not understood, how can anyone know whether a particular message, image or video would be helpful for others? In those days people understood the content before forwarding it because their primary purpose was to assimilate and absorb it. They were not in a rush to share.

Gratification was present, but it was in self-learning not in pitching unnecessary stuff on others walls, groups and platforms. People were not in the grip of instant satisfaction but they believed in the key takeaways they gained from understanding a particular piece of content. They found pleasure in understanding, and only then it enhanced their joy in sharing.
Today, due to easy access to the internet, we are bombarded with endless content in the form of videos, images and texts. It hardly leaves us time to check and fully understand the content. Innumerable content has developed a scrolling habit in us. Scrolling has made us addicted to sharing rather than understanding. It would be more productive to go through selected content, scroll less, and avoid unnecessary visiting and scrolling.
Nowadays, we do not need to think to create. AI is doing everything for us. Had we been the owners of the content, then sharing would have been done more wisely and carefully. Everything comes readymade, so we do not feel we have to lose while sharing. We stay mostly online and hardly get time to think or become our own self for a moment. We look at a large amount of information without reflecting. Being online, we get exposed to every kind of content that is floated on our screens. We go through multiple social sites like YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram and mostly fakebook. We scroll endlessly, click every link and glance briefly and move on to the next, and the process goes on and on. We are becoming so habitual that we do not leave a single content unexposed that floats on our screens. This habit makes us overloaded with information. The content visible on the screen controls us and leads us wherever it wants. After many hours online, we question ourselves about the purpose of being there and fail to answer.
No doubt, social networks have connected us more than ever. Many people have even become popular simply be being the first to inform or share updates. We have become very good at mindless sharing. It has become a trend to share links without absorbing the content beforehand. We are part of numerous groups. In each group there may be one or two members who genuinely lead, while many others ignore the role of admins and bombard everyone with endless content without caring about relevance. Even in some groups, some self-made admins display the same behaviour. They forward message within seconds without checking whether the content is accurate, relevant, or already shared. Often the same message appears multiple times, shared by different members. It becomes a rat race over who shares first. This speed creates false sense of participation. People are so quick to forward content that they hardly bother to check whether someone has already shared the same link or post. In some cases, even when they know it has already been shared, they stubbornly go ahead and post it again, to maintain their digital presence.
People are so active on social media where links and posts are constantly bombarding us. Some people tag others to grab attention. We have become so addicted to instant sharing that we act like automatic sharing machines, often without understanding the content ourselves. We rarely watch, read or grasp the material for our own awareness, instead we chase instant digital praise. We seek validation through likes, stars, hearts, comments and shares rather than true learning. We need to ponder over it. Can this constant blind sharing truly benefit us, if we are more focussed on sharing than on understanding for ourselves?
It is high time we move beyond the instant satisfaction and self-styled praise of link sharing in the digital era. Instead, we should glance less at content, scroll less, sideline the trash. Before sharing, read and absorb the material fully, and share only where it is truly relevant. Be careful what you are forwarding. We need to doubt and question what is being presented. Take the time to benefit from content yourself first, and only then share. Only then your sharing will become caring.

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