I’ve been wanting to blog for a while. I know you can’t tell by the lack of activity on this site, but honestly, I have. It’s just that every writing idea centers around the deaths of my parents, and that’s a habit that I don’t want to start here. So I asked myself if I could take that and turn it into a bigger issue that more people could relate to. I told myself that the answer was Yes, but I guess that it’s not up to me to decide if I successfully pulled it off.
On numerous occasions during the last few months, I’ve had conversations with friends about the issue of oversharing on Facebook. Not oversharing in the sense of something that may make a teenage girl squeal and scream, “Ew! TMI!” (as would be the case with describing your dog’s bowel movements, just in case you couldn’t think of such a topic). But oversharing in the sense of sharing every little personal crisis that comes one’s way. I have thought about this issue for a while, but I’ve obviously thought about it more lately with things that have happened in my personal life.
If you’re having a hard time figuring out how this conversation ties back into the intro of my post, just remember that that’s why I haven’t blogged: the last thing I want to do is vent all of my emotions to my readers and followers and push them away because they’re afraid of how depressed my interactions will make them. After all, I usually try to keep my posts positive no matter what the subject; the last thing I want is to be labeled a Debbie Downer.
I guess that this might bring up the question of the purpose of social media. Sure, the purpose is to connect, but to what extent and for what? Where is the line, where is the boundary?
I personally believe that there are some things that are reserved for certain people. And if someone should know these things, he would know without Facebook, whether by a phone conversation or face-to-face interaction. While it may seem nice to have the support of as many people as possible, let’s be honest: not everyone cares. At least not to the extent that they need/want frequent updates. Shouldn’t personal things be a bit more…personal? When things get blasted to a mass audience, they kind of lose that.
For a variety of reasons, I feel that we as a whole are still adjusting to the Internet. After all, it is still relatively new and young, at least for the majority of us. As we move more and more to an Internet-driven world, there are going to be some bumps in the way. Perhaps this is just one minor bump that we all must figure out.
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