What’s the reason why we shared that article?

Here's a link, Here's a link, Here's a link,

One of the readers of this blog posted an interesting comment that no explanations are needed when sharing articles. Simply sharing with like-minded people should be enough. The headline should stand for itself. I can see an argument for that. It’s like gift-giving. Often at birthdays we give gifts and there doesn’t always have to be an explicit reason why we picked a certain gift. Andreamv (the aforementioned reader) said, “As I just heard in a talk yesterday, what we share is how we define ourselves online.”

My response:

Good points, yes what we share is how we define ourselves online. But I would take that to another level and say how we share is how define ourselves online.

This reminds me of something the president of a company I interned for said in the late 90s. People would leave printouts of articles on his chair. A nice gesture, certainly. But he found himself with so much to read, I wanted to know why he should read certain articles. So he addressed the staff and asked people to put a sentence or two explaining why that article was worthwhile.

I believe the same thing holds to this day. While I appreciate people who share links, thereโ€™s just so many links, I would like to understand why some links in particular are worth reading. Perhaps the headline can explain why. But then sometimes I wonder if we have gotten to soo deep into consuming, that we have lost our way in processing what we consume to the point that we canโ€™t explain why something is significant.

Do you think it’s good to leave a reason why you are sharing a particular article? Or is it enough to simply just give the link?

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