Why do we share links without clicking?

A study has found that social media users, rather than reading posts or stories online, tend to share them without clicking.  

According to the study, 75 per cent of news-related social media posts were shared without prior reading. This means that information is often shared which could be futile, fake or misleading.

Researchers from US universities discovered that out of 35 million public Facebook posts, 75 per cent of these links were shared without a click. These particular posts came complete with URL’s to websites during key moments in the American political cycle between 2017 and 2020. The main tendency appears to be for users to read the headline, summary or number of likes and repost without a second glance or more importantly, without checking that the story is legitimate. This could possibly relate to the fact that we live in a society so bombarded by information at the click of a button – without the necessity for deep sourcing or researching thanks to search tools at our beck and call. We have quite possibly lost the need to verify.

Not clicking social media posts before sharing: spread of misinformation

The study, which was published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, said: “[The results are] quite telling as well as alarming.” It added: “This could potentially explain why it is so common for misinformation to spread so quickly via social media.”

Getting back to why. Researchers believe that the instantaneous nature of online interactions makes users more spontaneous in deciding what to share. The author of the study wrote: “One reason for [this] … could be the information overload in personal and social media feeds, putting pressure on online users to be expedient and thereby leading them to rely on simple, often superficial, cues.” Because of the incessant amount of information assimilated by social media users, there are theories that the average user feels more knowledgable than they actually are about scientific information and politics. Politically-sided users, in particular, are likely to share posts more readily to support propaganda campaigns for example.

Various hypotheses: why we share social media links without clicking

Another hypothesis behind the over-sharing of certain posts has been attributed to hyperactive partisan accounts and communities on Facebook that share only to create a wider following. They may be representating a wider propertion of users than we think. Alternatively some users may have read the content elsewhere, recognise the link and then share without clicking.

To avoid this and more importantly, to curtail the spread of misinformation and misleading material, the study has urged social media providers and companies to design warnings or alerts so that people are given a final ‘last chance’ to click before sending. Hopefully, this will also help users to be more conscientious of their actions in general and les impulsive when operating with internet content.

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