How much information is too much information? With the rise of digital media, privacy has lost meaning, while sharing has been taken to a whole new level. These days, it’s almost too easy for users to share every waking minute of their day-to-day lives.
Did you brush your teeth this morning? Oh, you ate a vegan grain bowl for lunch? How was your workout session at the gym after dinner? What kind of tea do you drink before going to bed?
Thanks to Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat – and now to a lesser extent, Facebook – sharing any of these details is easy as pressing a button (which is what you literally have to do on any of these platforms). Think about it, how many times have you seen a pair of roommates brushing their teeth on the BC Campus Story? How many times have you seen a “foodstagram” from your best friend at brunch?
Now, let’s take that sharing to a whole other level.
This blog post is a reflection on today’s society and its tendency to ‘over share’. Maybe you saw an overly personal Instagram caption about a dramatic break up, or maybe it was an overly detailed tweet about how hungover your friend. Whatever the case, how do over sharers on platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, or Snapchat, make you feel?
For instance, how do you feel when you read the following tweets?
Recently, Forbes published a study suggesting how personal tweets decrease social interaction rather than increase them.
Author Michael Thomsen states,
The majority of respondents found the Twitter profiles with high-intimacy information was more trustworthy and felt more confident in making conclusions about the page owner. Respondents were also more focused and attentive to the information posted by high-intimacy users. Paradoxically, they were much less likely to interact with the high-intimacy posters even as they admitted to being more drawn to them.
The medium of social media decreases the amount of risk a poster might feel when it comes to sharing – therefore making it easier to posting unnecessarily personal details. With that said, the amount of empathy the audience feels after reading said post, might be close to zero. The type of environment social media has created makes it much easier to desensitize posts on such platforms. The irony here, is that social media is supposed to make communication easier for all users. These last two issues are touched upon when Thomsen mentions users being drawn to interact with a high-intimate poster. At the end of the day, the reaction an over sharing poster expects, is generally not the one that is given.
At the end of the day, there’s not much to do about this issue other than to take it with a grain of salt. It’s funny to see comedians take over sharing to be part of their act, but how do we respond to those who are actually serious about their posts? At the end of the day, one just has to use his or her best sense of judgment when giving a response or just refrain from giving their two cents.
How do you feel about over sharing and what’s in store for it in the future? Do you agree with the study put out by Forbes that highly intimate posts deter you from giving responses over social media?