We’ve Screwed Up Sharing

Sharing is a generous act. But social media has made it selfish.

As kids, we learned sharing was the act of giving something we had of value to others who would benefit from it. We shared to make others happy, help them, and make their life better.

Sharing was a virtue.

Now think about what sharing looks like on social media today.

We share for lots of reasons, but most have nothing to do with generosity.

We share to get attention, to get validation, to showcase our opinions, to make others jealous, to criticize, and of course we share to get “Likes.”

More often than not, our sharing is driven by our needs as opposed to the needs of the people we share with.

We’ve made sharing a selfish act.

Our social feeds are littered with things designed to fulfill the needs of the poster as opposed to the postee.

So, what can we do about it?

Not much. The genie is out of the bottle.

But here’s a small thing we can do.

We can use social media in a more generous way. Share things that provide value to those who follow us. Offer to help them. Ask them what they need.

There’s nothing wrong with sharing photos of your lunch or ranting about whatever random thing pissed you off today. That’s part of what makes the Internet the Internet.

And I LOVE the Internet.

But maybe, every once in a while, we can share something people actually value as well?

Let’s make sharing valuable again.

And as a first step, please only share this post with people you think will genuinely value it. Thanks.

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6 Comments

-Nate January 25, 2016 Reply

Wow , that’s just sad .

I don’t do social networking so I wasn’t aware of this sad state of affairs .

-Nate

Josh February 2, 2016 Reply

Hey Nate, there’s still a lot of good stuff being shared out there (it’s not hopeless), but it’s certainly different than it once was.

-Nate February 2, 2016 Reply

Understood Josh .

I’m involved in a lot of it but didn’t think I should mention it here .

I only survived my Childhood and made it in life because so many stopped and took the time to give me guidance I desperately needed .

I believe in paying it forward long before it was a hip thing to do .

-Nate

Becky Eason February 1, 2016 Reply

Josh, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for the creation of your site. I found you today because of a forwarded e-mail from a friend and followed up on the information that was attached. Your attitude of sharing as a positive action to help another person, and not the action of boasting about our own life is needed in our world. We need to reach out and give positive encouragement to people to counter the media’s mission to sell “more for ME” culture. Awesome, I will enjoy being part of your community!

Becky Eason

Josh February 2, 2016 Reply

Thanks Becky – I appreciate it! Which post was shared with you originally?

Becky February 3, 2016 Reply

Josh, a friend forwarded a link to me for a commercial: Click here: Now THIS Is A Great Commercial, and your information followed in the e-mail. I checked it out and found out what you are doing to increase positive attitudes in our culture. The commercial was GREAT, and I enjoyed it. Becky

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