Brief ramble on oversharing…

I’ve been thinking a lot about oversharing lately – you know, when someone only needs a certain amount of information but you continue to explain yourself anyway. That’s an overshare.

Particularly, it’s been on my mind whether social media causes us to become ‘oversharers’ in other areas of our lives, too. We become so habituated to sharing the whole story – even if it’s in fits and spurts – that we continue to overshare when we step away from the keyboard.

Oversharing is obviously a rampant problem on sites like Facebook. I’ve done it, you’ve probably done it, and we all hear stories of the person who did it much too big ‘that one time’.

Perhaps a ’stop the oversharing’ PSA is in order…

From the mouths of babes…

Going back to school, I’m reminded of much I had to say when I graduated from undergraduate studies (it wasn’t so long ago!), but blogging had only just started to be a recognizable activity, instead of what it has become today, which is a fairly well-respected tool to build a personal platform and reputation.  No one I knew was yet podcasting instead of working at a local student radio station to build a portfolio.  We didn’t feel we had the place (as students) to talk to professionals like colleagues.  And on, and on.

Which leaves me really impressed, now that I’m back in school, with how many young people have built themselves up this way as undergraduates!  Start-up Nation covered a set of the top 20 dorm-based web-preneurs.  And I recently came across these recent college grads with a cool mentoring movement and their own podcast on PR/marketing at The Creative Career.  Or even the kids I encounter on weekly #journchat sessions on Twitter who are generally upper-classmen in undergraduate study from across the country.

We began a two-week discussion last night, in class, about how social media is changing our society.  I think we don’t have to look any further than these young entrepreneurs to see a great example; sure, there were always young, crafty kids starting a cookie sale or fundraiser, but I think it’s fairly recent and in large part because of the tools online that so many young people can start careers, social movements, personal growth so early and with such success.

Kudos to you, kids!  Get out there and keep doing what you’re doing, you’re an inspiration to us all.