Have you ever seen a status update or tweet and thought, I can’t believe someone would share that online? As a communication studies doctoral candidate, the bulk of my research interests lie in how we decide what to disclose online and why. Overshare has been declared the word of the year twice now (2008 and 2014) and is defined loosely as sharing an inappropriate amount of information about one’s personal life.
A fascinating study about Facebook use (that I suspect would be true of other social media as well) actually found that most users tend to underestimate their audience by nearly seventy-five percent. What this means is that when you log online and post something, you’re imagining just a quarter of the size of the audience that actually sees the post. The readers we imagine are the ones we already communicate with regularly – closer family, friends, and maybe even coworkers. But we may forget that our network extends out pretty far, and we end up “oversharing” details about our lives to our extended networks.
Different sites set up ways to deal with this concern about context collapse (having multiple different networks in one place) online, but ultimately it is your choice what you do. You can choose to take the least common denominator approach and share very little, or use barriers on the site to disclose to some but not all of your network.
Understanding that broadcasting out to everyone risks anyone seeing your posts is the first step in managing your online presence.
Natalie Pennington is a doctoral candidate at the University of Kansas, where she will graduate with a PhD in Communication Studies in May. She studies computer-mediated and interpersonal communication, with a particular interest in social media use. You can read more about her research on her website nataliepennington.com and hear more about her thoughts on technology on Twitter and Instagram: @natpenn.
Great point/question Tanzi. There are also studies that suggest people share more online because they expect everyone sees it and think that is the easiest way to get information out there, but not everyone sees everything on each site (thanks mostly to the glorious unknown algorithm of social media). I definitely agree that if you want and/or expect someone to know someone that directly conveying that to them through a face-to-face conversation, a text message, or phone call is the best way to know they in the know!
Such an excellent reminder. I see things and can’t imagine why someone posted it. However, I would bet that there are things that I share that seem innocuous to me, but someone else wouldn’t dream of sharing. I also think that there’s a huge lack of understanding that there is no such thing as complete privacy on the internet. The most secure way to share sensitive information with someone is to tell them in person, or pick up the phone.
In contrast, how many people do you think overestimate their reach? I have a friend that is always stunned when I don’t know about something that she posted on Facebook, and I have to remind her that, with a lot of connections and the fact that I don’t sit and stare at Facebook every minute of the day, it’s not likely that I’ll see every post she makes, so that shouldn’t be her first choice for making sure I know about something.