I have some friends who will text me links to stuff – most often videos or reels, but sometimes stuff to read or sound files. It’s a weird feeling, because I sort of enjoy it and sort of get irritated by it. It’s lovely that people are thinking of me and want to share stuff with me, particularly if they’re people I’d like to become better friends with. But it also feels like another thing that I have to do that’s less fun/personal than actually talking.
Just wondering if my mixed feelings are common or not. How do you feel if a friend sends you a link to something?
I feel the same way as you do. Often the link is to something someone thinks is cleaver or funny, and is neither. Sometimes I click on a texted link and it fails, and nothing happens, which is a complete waste of my time. I never text anyone a link, although I will sometimes email someone a link to something I know they will be interested in.
My wife likes scrolling through videos (TikTok-style videos on WeChat) and she sometimes insists on showing them to me. Sometimes they’re funny or cute, sometimes they’re not interesting to me at all.
“It’s a weird feeling, because I sort of enjoy it and sort of get irritated by it. It’s lovely that people are thinking of me and want to share stuff with me […] But it also feels like another thing that I have to do […]”
Anyone who knows me well is aware that I pretty much hate videos of “cute” or “amazing” things since they’re usually neither. In fact, most of the videos I see are over my husband’s shoulder when he wants me to see something. Just not interested. I don’t have TikTok and I keep trying to remove Reels from my FB feed.
Sometimes I find links to news items to be interesting, but getting them via text ticks me off - I don’t like reading anything more than a short text on the phone. The screen is too small for one thing. Email me and we’ll see how that goes.
Of course, when my daughter sends me videos of the grandkids, that’s another story.
If anybody sent me a lot of links I think I’d be mostly annoyed. And there’s one person in my life who sends some links that I’ve learned to recognize as something that I’m just going to ignore.
I do recognize, though, that feeling of 'this looks interesting but I don’t really have time for it, I don’t need another thing I’m supposed to read/watch right now!"
If somebody, it doesn’t matter who, sends me a link without telling me what it is I will not ever click the link. Depending on various things, I may respond with “You sent me a link. What is it?” If they do not describe what the link is and why I should click it, I ignore the link and move on.
A few months ago my sister texted me a link to a video. I was in a charitable mood and responded “I usually do not watch videos people send me even when I know what they are. Who is this person? What are they talking about? Why should I watch the video?”
Rather than answering any of my questions, her response was “Just watch it”. Naturally, I did not watch the video. I had given her fair warning and a chance to tell me what the video was and why I should watch it. Rather than pointing that out and having her get mad at me, I simply did not reply to her text.
I like when the sender at least gives me some context about what the video is about or why I should watch it. If the message is just a bare link, I’m not interested.
This, also; though I may phrase it as “did you send me a link? if so, what is it?” And I won’t do it as a reply-to, but will send that as a new message. If the message is a bare link, I don’t even know whether it’s actually them; but if there’s even a couple of sentences with it, I can usually tell.
I’ve never had someone send me a link that I wasn’t in a long-running conversation with.
I mean, maybe my friend will send me a video some 3 days after we last talked, but then we’ll have a quick chat about the video (or even just "HELL YEAH! ) and probably end up chatting about other stuff before “signing off” a few hours later.
Do people just send you links and have no other contact with you? Do you text back with a reaction to the video? Do you reach out to them to chat at times between videos?
I don’t know anybody who just send me links and has no other contact. Some of the people I know do send me links usually with a sentence or two of context. For example, I shared a Facebook post about a cartoon I didn’t remember. I said I had some of the toys and comic books. But, I didn’t remember the cartoon. One of my friends sent me a Facebook message which needed no explanation. The link preview showed it was a link to Youtube and the pilot episode of the cartoon.
People who I have other contact with occasionally send me bare links in an email, without having discussed those links during the other contact.
Yeah, if I’ve been having a conversation with somebody and they said “I’ll send you a link about that” and a short while longer the link shows up, I’ll open that one. But if the last time I communicated with them they said nothing about sending links and nothing directly related to what seems to be the topic of the link, or the topic of the link is unclear – not opening; sending a separate message to ask if the link’s actually from them and what about.
And yes I have occasionally heard back “no that wasn’t me! Do not open!”
Oof, this is way different than getting an unsolicited link via text. Don’t ever click those - assume your friend’s email account is being spoofed or got hacked. Same with people who send you links via a social media platform such a FB Messenger.
The OP did mention she gets these as texts, tho. So I assume they are not spam…
To be clear, the link my sister sent in me a text message showed the URL and had a preview image. It was some unidentifed woman clearly about to give a speech about something. As my sister often sends me articles or other ‘helpful advice’ that is useless or irrelevant, I had good reason to think the text really was from her.
I’ve gotten an occasional text that’s clearly spam; and I get very few texts as the cell phone number’s not out there much.
My phone won’t click on a link in a text in any case – I can see it, but there’s no click-on-it function. So if I think it might actually be from somebody I know, they’re going to get back ‘if that’s you, send it in email.’ But the people I do know almost all know not to text me, and the couple who only do text know that my phone’s limited.
Try the extension F.B. Purity. It gives you much more control over what you see on Facebook, including removing Reels (most of the time; there was a period of a couple of weeks when Facebook got around their programming and was jamming Reels down my throat, but F.B. Purity caught up with them again).
) and probably end up chatting about other stuff before “signing off” a few hours later.