Chances are, you’ve made at least one of those stupid posts on social media that makes you look back on it with a burning sense of facepalm. Well, if you can relate, then you’re in good company. According to a YouGov Omnibus survey, over half of American social media users reported posting or texting something they regretted afterward. One in six regularly rue their decision to post at least once a week, with Millennials being the most common offenders.

The participants who admitted to sharing dumb Facebook posts in the past said they are less anxious about sounding silly online compared to two years ago. They are much more worried, however, about damaging their reputation at work — 22 percent surveyed said they are concerned their questionable actions might negatively affect their careers.

Moreover, the survey revealed that 14 percent feared that sharing misguided images or messages online may hurt their relationships with loved ones. Women were more likely to fret about stupid Facebook posts damaging their relationships than men. Interestingly, when it comes to the time and place these mistakes occur, they usually happen at home, late at night when tired, or after having a few drinks.

But the truth is that most of us see social media as the perfect outlet to share views and vent about politics, religion, culture, and sports, among other things. By doing so, we sometimes forget that it’s also notorious for immortalizing our silly wisdom with groups like Stupid People on Facebook dedicated to it and ensuring it comes back to haunt us. To gain insight from an expert in the field, we reached out to Dr. Paul Reilly, senior lecturer in communications, media and democracy in the School of Social & Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow, UK.

When asked why social media users often share their dumb Facebook posts without thinking twice, Dr. Reilly explained the design of online platforms encourages instant responses and reactions. "The stories, images and posts that feature prominently in our social media timelines are often the most likely to elicit emotional responses from us."

"The 'publish then filter' model of these sites also means our opinions are published immediately with no cooling off period for us to consider whether we want to post them or not," he added.

Typing a few sentences and pressing "share" may seem like a great idea when you’re flooded with emotions. But in reality, we all need to be more aware of the fact that anything we say online has the potential to last, dare we say it, forever. Embarrassing photos, ill-timed jokes, drunken messages, and hot takes that age so badly, they turn sour — the internet is known to save things you didn’t want to be saved in the first place. What’s even worse, your posts might not only be saved, but also discussed in places like Stupid People on Facebook Reddit threads.

When asked whether our stupid Facebook posts always become permanent, Dr. Reilly told us, "Yes and No. It’s true that social media posts are no longer your property when you share them publicly or even privately, given that they can be shared by others. Even on encrypted apps like WhatsApp and Snapchat, people can take screenshots of content deleted by others and share them later."

"However, there needs to be a motivation for someone to do this," he continued. "This is why we see so many politicians being shamed for historic (and often deleted) social media posts. The consequences can be severe, ranging from embarrassment, reputational harm, people losing jobs and even worse." Especially because sometimes, digital content can be made permanent in ways we never imagined. The posts can be changed, modified, or altered into something completely different from what they originally intended to be.

According to Dr. Reilly, this can even lead to the spread of fake news and false information. "This is why you will see people getting prompts asking them to read before they share content on sites like Twitter."

"People should ideally verify the information before they share it, but many don’t," he said. "However, it should also be noted that people are better at detecting 'fake news' and disinformation than they are often given credit for."

A recent study entitled "The Ability to 'Distill the Truth'" conducted an experiment to see Americans’ ability to evaluate the accuracy of news items. The researchers asked participants to read a series of short news stories on various topics — half consisted of accurate information, and the other half contained incorrect and downright fake news.

"On average, participants in our experiments provided the correct evaluation of veracity only in 62% of the news stories they saw, and only 14% of subjects were able to discern the veracity of information in at least 80% of the news stories," Alberto Cardaci, co-author of the study and Assistant Professor of Economics at Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany, wrote.

Cardaci stated that a simple intervention — asking people to think about the accuracy of the story they read before sharing it — can increase the quality of what people share online. So the researchers randomly selected half of the participants and told them which news stories they identified as accurate were, in fact, false. "We found that subjects who received this informative feedback increased their awareness of the problems related to misinformation and showed a greater desire to act against the risk of being affected by it," he explained.