43 Times People Overshared So Badly Everyone Was Left Wondering What To Say

It’s hard to deny that these days a large part of our social lives takes place online. More than five billion people use social media to keep in touch, share experiences and express themselves, according to research published on The Conversation. And there are perfectly good reasons for sharing.

Research from the University of Southampton offers some insight into why we do it. Their systematic review of almost two decades of research found that self-disclosure (sharing personal information, thoughts or feelings) and self-presentation (managing how we appear to others) can help us build relationships, feel accepted and establish our social standing.

But like in real life, what we choose to share online—and how we share it—can shape how other people respond to us. The researchers found that online sharing tends to work best when it feels genuine, appropriate and suited to the audience, with people responding better to everyday content than posts that feel boastful, overly curated or designed to impress.

But this raises another question: when it comes to “everyday content,” at what point does sharing become oversharing? As Shayla Love wrote for The Guardian, reflecting on the thoughts and photos she had “casually put online without a second thought”: “Who needs to know what I’m buying at the farmer’s market or how long I waited for the subway?”

Psychologist Mark Travers defines oversharing as “disclosing an excessive or inappropriate amount of personal information, especially in contexts where such information is unexpected or unwarranted.” But as Love points out, what counts as “excessive” is subjective, depending on the context and what people consider normal. Sharing personal information is, after all, part of how we get to know each other, with relationships generally becoming more intimate as people gradually disclose more. The problem is more likely to arise when that level of disclosure isn’t mutual—when one person is revealing far more than the other has invited or reciprocated.

But the distinction between sharing and oversharing can also come down to where and with whom you’re sharing. As Psychology Today contributor Polly Campbell puts it, sharing something personal with a close friend is very different from sharing the same story with a colleague or stranger. Personal disclosures can build intimacy and connection when they’re appropriate, but “saying too much, to the wrong people, in the wrong spaces” can simply leave everyone feeling awkward.

And the why can matter just as much. Writing for Forbes, Amy Morin argues that “the difference between being authentic and oversharing stems from your intentions.” Sharing a difficult experience to help someone else, for example, isn't necessarily the same as sharing it to gain sympathy—a practice sometimes referred to as “sadfishing.” She also argues that authentic relationships are built over time, whereas oversharing can sometimes be an attempt to create intimacy before that trust exists.

And social media has made those distinctions a little harder to navigate. We can share intensely personal things with an audience that may include people we barely know, or people we never intended to address in the first place. As media researcher Aparajita Bhandari, cited by Love, puts it, “Those boundaries of personal versus public are shifted in these new spaces that we’re in.”

All of this is to say that oversharing isn’t simply about saying too much. Rather, it’s about saying something that feels too personal, too soon, or to an audience that really didn’t ask for it. In other words, it’s more often about the mismatch between what someone chooses to share and what their audience expects, wants, or is prepared to receive. And while that line can be subjective, sometimes the disconnect is pretty glaring.

Which, conveniently, brings us to these posts. And perhaps we need say no more.