Practicing Content Sharing Mindfulness

Arash Narchi
Aug 24, 2017 · 3 min read

I used to save all my links to read later in Pocket. My backlog became so long, I abandoned it. It made me anxious. Then I started doing the same thing in an Evernote file. Abandoned it for the same reason. I still have backlogs for 2015 and 2016 in Evernote — a file of full of links which I’ll never catch up with.

Photo Credit: Anthony Martino via Unsplash

It’s pretty clear we’re swimming in more content than we need.

Every week I see a new article on the best way to ‘Unplug’ or how smartphones are creating depressed and disconnected teens. Even products are made to support this — like the Light Phone. Attention and focus are limited in the information age. This is the current state of affairs on a macro level. On a micro level — think of all the content you interact with every day. You can interact with thousands of pieces of content while only engaging with a few pieces. Some of us will share multiple pieces of content everyday, others less frequently and very few share only when it’s important.

We can all be more mindful in the way share and engage with content. Attention is expensive and we all do our part to reduce the cost and increase everyone’s bandwidth. But Arash, aren’t algorithms working to tailor content to our needs? Yes, but it comes at a cost of spending more time on each platform to cater to your needs.

I’ve started becoming more mindful about the frequency of content sharing in my own networks. These don’t include any personal updates (which I do very little of anyway). Below are some tips and questions I ask myself before sharing.

How to Share: Public / Private

Does everyone need to see this post? Is this going to be of value or interest for a large number of people (at least 10% of your network)? If the answer is yes, then share it. If the answer is no then think of people who will enjoy the information and send it privately to them. Include a specific note as to why you thought of them and why they might like what you’ve shared. This shows you value and respect their time. This also encourages conversation regarding what you’ve shared. Would your rather have 100 likes or 3 engaging conversations on interesting ideas?

Schedule Emails

Our impulse to share something right after we read it is normal. Most blogs will have build in APIs to do this immediately. It’s worth it to take the extra step to schedule an email for something you’re sending. This works well for a few reasons. First, you can schedule content to come into someone’s inbox during the evening or on weekends. Second, you may forget about the email and end up having a fun conversation a few days later. You can use Boomerang for this if you use Gmail.

Ask for Feedback

I’ve written about feedback before — and it’s still very relevant here. According to new research, receiving feedback is a crossroad between two human desires. One is wanting to learn or grow and the other is wanting to be accepted for who we are today.

If you’re sending 10 memes a day and receive feedback it’s too much — you may take it personally. But it’s important to know what you are sharing is relevant to your audience. Don’t be afraid to ask how people are receiving the quality and frequency of your content. This should be a given, but I’ve seen people who have asked to stop receiving a certain type of content and the sender keeps sending that content over! The sender is likely taking things too personally and feels rejected rather than seeing the two individuals that have a difference in taste.

We can all do our part to increase everyone’s bandwidth for attention. These are just some ideas. Share what you do for mindful content sharing in the comments. If you enjoyed this comment, clap below as if you were watching an Ed Sheeran concert. Or don’t because it defeats the purpose of this whole post and make me a hypocrite.

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