I have a blog and Facebook and Twitter and YouTube and am so in love with myself that I have to share everything I do with everyone. At least that's what psychologist Jean M. Twenge says in her new book, “The Narcissism Epidemic.” Check out Twenge on the TODAY show this morning.
After watching the segment from this morning's show I can't say that I completely disagree with what's being said. We're all so plugged in to the online world (hey, at least I deleted my MySpace page) that it can be really hard to disconnect.
I actually had a good conversation last night about over-sharing online. I was talking about Twitter and how, yes, no one really cares if you're waiting in line at the post office or still feeling hungry after eating lunch, but it gives us a sense of community and human contact whether people are actually reading/seeing our updates or not. You can then read other people's updates and tweets and have a pseudo conversation with someone else—even if it's all one-sided.
It's a slippery slope, I guess. No one cares that I hear weird noises outside of my apartment at night, but when I tweet "I like to play the game "Car, Construction Vehicle or Dinosaur?" Dinosaur normally wins." I get a pretty positive, humorous response. If people find this entertaining, what about all the other junk I do all day long?
The good news is that if you don't give a shizz about what I'm doing you simply don't have to read it.
Thoughts?
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