Social Media is now part of our system, most of the time it becomes our breakfast, dinner and lunch! It was too difficult to quit, in our generation life is indeed incomplete without our social media, we can have a lengthy of reason's and excuses to stay online specially because we are on pandemic where going outside still need precautionary measurements. Since the pandemic is March 2020 i literally haven't attended party and it made me realize that am kinda introvert (is manifested in more reflective and reserved behavior) and not extrovert (manifested in outgoing, talkative, energetic behavior).
On the other hand i am also thinking that it has something to do with aging and practicing minimalism where in only say yes to the things that spark joy to me. Whatever is the reason what i wanted to talk about in this blog is "over sharing on our social media". I am guilty of this to be honest, i felt that many times i exposed myself to social media that is why i want to create this blog to remind myself to THINK before I-CLICK!
But how do we know if we overshare?, hear me out below:
1. Posting intimate details
Family
Now a days when we want to know who is the sibling of so and so we just need to do little bit of profile checking and boom we get the information that we need. Most of us use our real names, Opps, there is nothing wrong about using our real names in social media, we can be found by our long lost relatives and friends but filling up who is our parents, and siblings is too much.
Exactly that our entire family tree is present in our social media accounts. I believe that doing so, we are putting our family members in a dangerous situations specially if it include photos and its too frequent. For me family photo's and details shall be exclusive and shall be share to your chosen friends and relatives only.
Friends
I am a bit guilty of this, i share our friends outing on social media and tag my friend Cha and Sam mostly saying i miss them and blah, blah, blah social media post. On the other hand i also give credit to myself because not all photos are shared on social media, what was shared was filtered and we see to it we don't do embarrassing photo that might ruin us completely. I also keep our conversations private and never share it to anyone. We may go places but share it after rather than share in while we are their. It is still good to share conversation with good friends leaving your phone out, for me the sincerity and pure intention is present without our phone, we pay attentions so well.
Relationship
Your better half, your boyfriend or your girlfriend when you share it to social media you create jealousy as not everyone was luck to experience relationship. And on lighter note what if you two broke up? does it means that you need to delete all those photos? The answer will always be yours. I've see so many relationship that was too public that ruin their presence after the break-up the worst is exchanging bad words. That is terrible!
My point is simple, since your sharing him or her to your social media, are you also willing to share him/her to other people? If your answer is yes then you may continue, but if your answer is no then you better avoid or filter what you share about him or her. I believe that the best relationship doesn't land on social media same goes with experience.
Officemate
8 hours of all our weekend are with our officemates, posting their photos on social media is not my cup of tea nor inviting them in my social media specially those whom i currently work with as i write my blog.
Why? because i don't want to be part of the statistic who lost their job because of social media post. For me work and personal life should always be separate. Posting on social media about our current employer details and our position is not so good, unless we are doing so for marketing, if not, then better to stay low key and let the other people discover you!
2. Personal Drama
Sigh am highly guilty of this, at high pick my emotions i cannot stop myself but to vent it in social media at time. Although i try to be cryptic and not to mentioned any names but this is the part of my life where i wanted to improve more, and wanted to become better specially venting my emotions at work because first of all none of my officemate were in my Facebook friends list (haha) so am barking at the wrong tree!
I wanna improve by watching more leveling up video on how to become a lady because i still felt that i am bonker and has kid inside. I wanna achieve keeping my ups and down away from social media, because really who cares! Social media wont give me solutions am just giving the gossiper juicy substance against me.
3. Posting photos or videos of things meant to be private.
Social media has been a place where most people post their photos kissing their loveones, i think there is nothing wrong about it if it spark joy, but what is in-correct is the amount of photos your upload.
And oh, never forget those selfie taken in different days and angle, sometimes i felt that those who does it are histrionic and narcissistic trying to get self validations.
4. Regularly posting your meals
I once post my meals for the entire months because i was on a KETO diet, I post it at my 30th day as some of my friend were curious about my weight lost but i felt too bad because people perceive my intentions in other way around, i think it was mis-understood.
It was on my best intentions to post it because from being so fat (90kgs) i was down to 64kgs and KETO diet has help me reduce my weight aside from exercise of course. I want people to be inspired but i also realize that not everyone has good meals or can afford meals, that i end up hiding it from my timeline and will increase more on being sensitive that yeah it pandemic times and not everyone has meal to eat. I've really learn my lesson!
5. "Checking In" to everywhere you go
This is so dangerous in my own opinion. For me the place where you sleep, work, and go on regular basis shall be private. I have high reservation on this, i really do like that people would respect my personal space and i do the same to other other people. If i add them on their Facebook then i wont add them on Instagram otherwise.
In my opinion it is okey to share photos of your travel after, and not while doing the travel, this way we can protect ourselves and make yourself present in the situation rather than being too busy snapping photo instead of enjoying the experience. We are not celebrity that we need to inform our fans, nor we have fans at all.
6. Posting multiple times a day
There are times that i post ATM (At the moment) photos and i really wish i did not. So many times it better to be mysterious and let the people discover it when they see you.
I have various social media accounts because i have e-shops and do various work online. But then i wanna keep myself more private and really wanted to improve in this aspect. And would like to take below steps.
1. Do not post when your emotional
So many times i wanna exactly narrate what happen and why am venting as if am asking for validation or sympathy, i try to create long post and end up deleting it before posting because my thoughts are all scattered and am too emotional after re-reading it. Even i, i cannot understand my self.
My advice to you and myself is to let the emotions subside before posting anything coz you might end up regretting in the future. This is so true when we are overjoy or feeling so sad and disappointed.
2. Social media is not life
When we post our doing in social media it becomes public property subject to scrutiny. Peoples opinion are no longer in our control or we can never control it at all. Having life outside the social media will help us live a better life out from the box.
Recently, i shift from un-healthy person to become a better version of myself. Yes i share my journey with sincere intention to inspire other people that we can always have hope, but to share where i exactly go, what time, and what i exactly do is always just within the people i trust the most. Its too personal for me and to be share just within my family and inner circle.
3. Filter
Filtering our post and the audience of our post will help us, For example their are albums where in i want to share to few people in my social media so i do so. So it doesn't mean that you are my friend and you will see all my photos or post, some of them are hidden while others are for only few selected individual. So when that specific photo may leak i know who to blame! Kidding aside!
4. Social media decluttering
Oh girl, here we go again with your minimalism, as if minimalism will solve every problem here on earth. But to be honest we can apply the decluttering in our social media.
Those people within our list that has too much drama we can choose to un-follow them so we can protect our mental health and refrain from reacting to their post, coz we might end up, commenting on their post and we end up too brutal and end up ruining ourselves.
5. Take some time off
When we arrive at home from work, we miss our phone very much and we always intent to have fun for few minutes but that minutes end up in hour or more. We enjoy too much watching random post, videos and adds, honestly nothing is wrong about it, but what is wrong is that too much social media is detrimental to our eyes and our health.
In my case i take time to turn off my social media. Some days i stay offline, and some days i stay online. There are also cases wherein i want to interact, and time where i do not want to reply. Those days are both ok and i dont explain myself to anyone why i dont reply. For me saying no to thing that dosent give me joy without explaining myself is freedom. Social media is fun and powerful it will help us in many ways like earn extra income or learn new things. If we use it wisely we will benefit from it, otherwise social media will consume us. The choice will always be with us on how do we use thing on our benefit or the other way around. So what is your thoughts? Do you overshare?
