“Forwarded as received” As we press that forward button

We come across hundreds of messages forwarded on the social media. Cries for help, information on a kidnapped child, a bunch of phone numbers for women to call when they take a lonely ride, a helpline that picks left over food, an account number to donate to the army, a celebrity’s death news, porn pictures, sardar jokes………..

I have often wondered, what could be the psychology behind this act of message forwarding. We forward a message without investigating if it is true or not ,without giving any thought on whether this would be hurtful to anyone or if at all that message makes sense. Does forwarding a message as we receive it absolve us of its responsibility? I really don’t think so. We are ethically responsible for all the communication that we spread around. Most of us have been brought up on the ideals of valuing our word. We try not to say things we do not mean, we try not to say hurtful things to people, we try to stand by what we have spoken. With this kind of upbringing, I often wonder why we hit the forward button without a ‘pause to ponder’.

I have figured out that a pause to ponder will many times stop us from hitting the forward button. Let me give a few examples.

Recently, we have seen forwards of a girl kidnapped in a Ritz. One group said this girl was from Little Flower school, Guwahati. Another said it was from a school in Bangalore. The vehicle that was in the picture has Haryana registration. A pause to ponder will make us realise that if this girl was genuinely kidnapped and the license plate of the car, provided it is the correct license plate of the car, is so visible, the police would have caught the kidnappers pronto! So, before spreading such news with the photograph of such a beautiful young girl, what with paedophiles around, the least one can do as a responsible citizen is to check if this piece of news is true or not. And it’s not that one has to really do a lot of research in the musty halls of a public library. At the click of a button, or rather a swipe of a finger, google will give us the results.

Another one, a very stupid message if I were to give an opinion. A message gives a set of numbers which one can dial when one is travelling alone is a public vehicle, say an auto rickshaw or a taxi. Then this vehicle will be tracked so that the lady travelling can feel safe. If this set of mobile numbers were released from the women’s safety cell of the police, they would have been publicly made available- in the newspaper, on bill boards on the road, on radio, on television, everywhere. Would the police ever put its trust on a what’s app message to reach the public? When we pause to ponder, we also realise that, calling up some unknown number which tracks a lonely woman’s travel route jeopardises her safety, it puts her at such a risk. Calling up such a number is downright stupid!

A very entertaining forward has been doing the what’s app rounds recently. That of internationally acclaimed singer Shakira singing Old man river and Bhupen Hazarika’s very famous song Ganga behti hain kyon, in Hindi & Bangla. While people went gaga over her great Indian pronunciation, without even a pause to ponder, it is evident that neither the voice nor the English pronunciation was at all like Shakira’s. I found a Times of India Article that says this medley was sung in 1999 by Purabi Mukhopadhyay. I found another website which indicates, though not directly that the rendition is by Kaplana Patowary. Whatever be the case, it is not by Shakira!

With Google at our service, it is not too difficult to find out if a message is right or if it has any value. Then why can’t we resist the urge to forward? Be it the message of Shashi Kapoor’s death, or Shah Rukh Khan’s bald head, we do not spare even celebrities, or probably target them more in our urge to be the herald of news- good or bad, true or false. Just putting the disclaimer “Forwarded as received” does not make it ok to forward any gossip, slander, inaccurate information, emotionally charged defamation, prejudiced stories and lies. We are the creators of the environment we live in. Pressing the forward button irresponsibly just demonstrates our callousness and absolute lack of care towards our fellow beings. Let us take onus of our communication and pledge to send only messages that add value to our environment and relationships.