t hasn't been long since we have had the telegraph. Some people weren't too sure about the invention which used something called electricity. What is electricity? It is the stuff that lightning is made of. So the telegraph sends messages using lightning, right?
I looked up sailing across the Atlantic. The answer was six weeks. So, it hasn't been all that long that radio and faster, more widespread communication has been possible. These days, we have email. Writing, pictures, videos can be transmitted quickly and easily.
I get about 20 or 30 emails a day but only 3 to 5 are sent by people I actually know. Many of the emails I get are from someone in an organization and of course, many are advertisements for a service or a product. These days, when I get emails in news, comments or ads, I often think of a friend who seems interested in the main topic of the item and then I forward the email to them. When I get something in the US Post, I very rarely send it on. I could make copies with a copy machine and send the item on but I don't. The speed and ease of email allows me to forward something to multiple people.
I am wondering about convenience and speed of forwarding contributing to the phenomena of passing on to others. I haven't found much about how much forwarding goes on. I do see that some sources request me to forward to friends, citing "mouth to mouth" advertising as being powerful. I suppose finger-to-email address is powerful, too. With a single word, I can insert 20 or so email addresses into a single forwarding and I have more than 20 such mailing lists. I doubt that I am more than an average forwarder.
