Hi Marcey, I saw this and thought of you.
How many times a week do you get an article that is six pages long that the person sending you didn’t even bother to read or a newsletter or video that you have no idea how it applies to you?
I am a reformed sender of ‘this topic may interest you’.
A real time waster is a link via email or the forward of a newsletter with a line from the sender that says “I saw this and thought of you”.
You sent an entire newsletter with five different topics, which one of them made you think of me? I don’t have or want to spend 15 minutes clicking every link trying to figure it out. I’ve also had people blindly forward these types of emails or articles only to find out that they didn’t even read them and it either completely went against my values, processes or business model or the content didn’t line up with the title and it didn’t have anything to do with me at all.
I don’t share anything on social media unless I’ve actually read it. A headline like “Households that split chores 50/50 end up with more divorce” doesn’t tell you that the reasons might be because the women are more educated, work full-time, don’t need to be supported and are less likely to allow themselves to be disrespected and the rate has nothing to do with chores. My own husband sent me a link to why he shouldn’t make the bed in the morning, making it obvious that he didn’t read the article, which in the end, said why you should make your bed in the morning. Backfire!
Now, I try to at least send one sentence on why I think they might like it or why it made me think of them in particular.
I have a girlfriend who doesn’t share that often so when she does, I often read it because I know she doesn’t blind forward. Even saying something like “John Oliver is spot on in this. It’s sad, but true” makes me want to watch it and I know she has as well.
I have some of my own family members on auto filter because of blind overshare. They forward things that are completely against my spiritual and political beliefs or that are internet hoaxes and they don’t have the smarts to look them up on snopes.com. Know what that is??? Internet gossip. You are a gossiper! These family members now go straight to my archives if the subject line has FW: in it. Do I miss things? Yes, I’m sure I do, but it isn’t worth wading through 20 email forwards to find something valuable.
Read before you share. Discriminate to concentrate. Be mindful of other people’s time.
What mistakes have you made from blind oversharing?
