I am 100% guilty of oversharing things online, and, ironically, I’m currently oversharing in this post while talking about oversharing.
I had a significant oversharing problem that began during the pandemic and persisted afterward. During that time in my life, I wanted attention or just felt alone. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but about wanting to be seen. As a frequent user of social media apps designed for oversharing, such as X (formerly Twitter), it was easy to fall into that habit. It’s so easy to post about every random thought or thing happening in your life with just a few words and sentences.
My common problem? Always posting about my past talking stages. I’m still not quite sure why my past self always did this, but I think it came from my followers feeling like a small circle of friends. Since most of my classes were remote during community college, it was really hard to socialize. Posting frequently online made up for the lack of social interaction.
Is oversharing bad? Not really.
Oversharing is so common on social media, and it’s seen frequently with influencers since it gets engagement. People online love hearing about other people’s situations, so if it’s normal, then oversharing doesn’t really feel like a bad thing.
However, it’s super easy to look back and ask yourself, “Why did I share that?” We tend to get comfortable quickly and say personal things to people you don’t even really know. I started to realize that I was oversharing online after a few semesters at CSUF. I remember scrolling through my followers one day and realizing, “Should people who knew me years ago still know this much about my life now?” It felt weird to think about.
We also tend to overshare with strangers and people we meet for the first time, and we quickly regret that. It’s important to understand who you’re sharing vulnerable moments with.Â
It’s an odd feeling that people from your past can see everything going on in your life. They can see my relationships, my college life, and how I’m feeling without ever having to speak to me (whether in-person or text). Will I ever fully stop oversharing online? Probably not. It’s a normal human behavior, and we have so many emotions that we just can’t keep only to ourselves.
As I continue growing up, I realized some things should just be kept personal. Not everyone needs to know everything about you, and you shouldn’t know everything about others. It’s great to start practicing to have some aspects of your life to yourself and other things to share online for the world to see.