Why do we feel compelled to recirculate stuff already available on the net?
From the first of June, 2018, I started writing Good Morning messages in the form of poems (Please read: ‘Good Morning Message #1‘).
The last such message was:’Good Morning Message #215‘.
Good Morning Friends,
Lets take a break from Spiritualism today:
Are we all just carriers or messengers,
Of spreading the stuff already on the net shared,
Social life is not a train, we aren’t mere passengers,
Would no one be worried about how we ourselves fared?
Are we satisfied about pushing some ‘forward‘?
Don’t we find it just a wee bit awkward?
If yes, can you think of when we last wrote our own,
Not a comment but our own original stuff;
Is our job only to praise or bemoan?
Don’t we think of recirculating ‘forwards‘ we’ve had enough?
Is there no shame in copy and paste?
Don’t we feel sorry that our faculties are lying waste?
Finding a good one on the net is like fishing in a pond,
And then all that we have to do is to press ‘share‘,
Now wait for the others to read and respond,
No effort is required, it is all already there.
Those who want a peep in our mind,
Have to do so at the strength of
I would rather read what you yourself write,
Than the ‘wisdom‘ of an unknown writer,
Even if to start with it doesn’t sound too bright,
At least it proves to me you are a fighter,
Go ahead use your dormant imagination,
Of post Whats App society let’s lay the foundation.
Those who send me a simple ‘Good Morning’ message of their own, for example, always get a response from me as opposed to those who send me colourful memes that they pushed.
P.S. It is a scary scenario, really; these ‘forwards‘ (anything that we don’t ourselves write) are making us go backwards to the Stone Age.
After 900 years of slavery, our DNA has got the defect of
1. Do only what you are told to do
and
2 Get away with the least you can
Application of mind is not/hardly required in doing just these.
.
I have always insisted on the posting person to write
1. what a video is about
and
2. what is so special in it for him/her to have decided to post it
And guess what!!
95% people do not do even this
*So much for the expectation of own created & crafted scripts!!*
This is making WhatsApp
A junkyard for all and sundry that comes to One from where ever in the world
to be posted where ever else he/she is a member.
The posts overload is so much that everyone seems to be *A Hanuman who does not recognise the Sanjeevani Booti* and brings the whole mountain…
And you have to be the *Vaidya*.
My formula to save on time is
1. I have set WhatsApp to automatic download of text and pictures
but *not videos*
I download videos only from established creative posters
and
those where the details about video and reason for posting are given, and found appealing
rest even if it is the best content, if the poster does not have time to define it,
I have no intention to explore.
Videos take away main memory and evacuation is required frequently if the videos are downloaded
Similarly posting out videos say, 10 MB to 100 people consumes 1 GB of data,
My intention is always to look for the URL from YouTube for the posted video and share that link so that people can view it without the video download, keeping space in their main memory of the smartphone.
.
It has been expressed as a joke showing picture of a hospital called *Social media Hospital* with separate wards for Facebook, WhatsApp, …. addicts in various categories.
The fact of life is that this addiction is more severe to break than that of alcohol or nicotine,
I would not be surprised that counsellors psychologist and psychiatrist mushroom in times to come, as much as the mobile shops and mobile recharging outlets of present.
.
Every great invention has flipside
like nuclear power being used less for productive purpose and more for destructive purpose,
same is the situation with the social platform
If only people used it to fuel imagination for constructive purpose with own content,
it will develop the mind so much better for creativity
… but Alas!!!
Thank you, Rakesh. Very rightly brought out by you that it is not the fault of the platform but what we do with it. The example of a knife comes into mind: the doctor uses it to save someone’s life and the killer uses it to terminate someone’s life. It is the same with the net; we can use it for innovative and constructive purposes or we can use it, as we are presently doing, for dumbing down.