Too
many people forward more messages – text, image, audio, or video – than they
create on their own, many without even the preliminary of attentively reading or
watching what they forward. Often the only things people write are ‘good
morning’ messages (which some others conveniently and labour-savingly forward
as ‘good morning’ images instead). And, the rare images that many people take
the trouble to create tend to be selfies. For the rest, electronic exchanges are
a seemingly endless torrent of forwards, and emoticons felicitating those
forwards, a huge expenditure of bandwidth, time, and effort, with very little
edification to show for the trouble. Except perhaps greatly increased tolerance
for spam. Sending and receiving forwards for want of something for one’s thumbs
to do may seem harmless, but reveals a lack of respect for one’s own time and
energy, and certainly those of others. It also suggests acceptance that one
cannot come up with anything original that merits transmission.
Forwarding
messages can be such an automatic action that some forwarders are surprised to
come up against objections to what they’ve forwarded, often disagreement with
some fine point: That’s where the lazy injunction “Chill, it’s just a forward!”
comes in. This is terrific advice, not for the recipient of these mindless
messages, but for the aspirant sender: Chill. It’s just a forward. Don’t send
it.
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