Why are so many people keen to share their most private details with the world? Talk to the hand because Oliver Bennett isn’t listening
‘Too much information!’ It’s a modern cliché, uttered when someone tells a friend or colleague too much about some personal matter. It’s used so liberally in some circles – among my 17-year-old daughter’s friends, for instance – that they just say ‘TMI’ and pull a face that says ‘eeew’.
I’m sure most agree that there’s something highly irritating about the phrase. But there’s some substance in the complaint, as these days people do have a tendency to tell people too much, too soon.
Sure, gossip is fun. But I really don’t want to be burdened with news of colleagues’ private affairs, their children’s exam results or their aunt’s debt problems. I’m sorry, but as they say, ‘TMI’.
The snappy American phrase for this phenomenon is ‘oversharing’. It’s when people – strangers, colleagues, gym acquaintances, first dates – tell you just a little bit too much about themselves. Recently I attended a training course when I sat next to a nice woman in the morning. Off we went for lunch, and over the course of a feta wrap, I heard about her errant husband, her naughty daughter, even her dogs’ personalities, for heaven’s sake. I left feeling tired and overburdened.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with emotional disclosure. It is healthy in moderation: better than keeping negative feelings bottled up. To communicate freely is normal, natural and surely healthier than the stiff-lipped, stoic ways of the past, when expressing feelings was unseemly, not ‘respectable’.
Can you keep a secret?
But what I resent is the constant baring of souls, the unsolicited sharing of intimate secrets, and the incessant outpouring of emotion. It’s a post-Oprah Winfrey world, where gushing is good – and where you, dear listener, are the unpaid therapist. All too often, oversharing is an imposition on the listener.
‘I’m afraid it’s part of the psychotherapy age that people feel the need to reveal themselves,’ says Pat Doonbar, a psychologist who specialises in confessions. But be warned: it’s not real therapy. ‘What oversharers are looking for is for others to be uncritical sounding boards. That’s not healing.’
Moreover, there may well be negative consequences of people knowing too much about you. ‘It’s about appropriate self-disclosure,’ says Relate counsellor Paula Hall. ‘If we give out intimate details, it should be in a situation of trust, with close relatives or a counsellor.’
The trouble is, oversharing is part of the spirit of the age. One only need read a newspaper, turn on the TV or look on the internet to witness a babel of people talking about themselves. Chat shows, teenagers weeping on reality television, celebrity biographies by the yard, memoirs about appalling childhoods – all these show a society in the grip of oversharing. Some in the public eye seem to relish such self-exposure. Take Richard Madeley, as in Richard and Judy, who let viewers into the secrets of his vasectomy, and even his daughter’s first period, on TV.
Not so secret diary
We could add to the list of over-shared horror shouted mobile phone conversations, where everyone else is forced to listen, and the digital camera boom. But these pale in comparison with the phenomenon of online social networks such as MySpace, with more than 80 million members, wherein people put their hopes, fears, secrets and friends – and even intimate details such as their sexual preferences – in front of a vast audience.
In Jane Austen’s day, a diary was kept in a discreet drawer: now it’s online for all to see, bad poems and all. ‘It’s a form of exhibitionism,’ says Paula Hall. ‘The chances to be seen and acknowledged are much greater now.’ And many of us cannot resist the temptation.
If technology has played its part, then so have greater social mobility, faster friendships and wider social networks. ‘We haven’t got time to work up to closeness through long courtships, so we use intimate conversations like one-night stands,’ says social psychologist Sheila Keegan. ‘In my experience, in the five minutes that you are thrown together with the mothers at the school gates, you can be told the most extraordinarily intimate things.’ It’s simply more acceptable to share the minutiae of your lives, to the point that if people withhold, reckons Keegan, ‘we’re likely to see them as cold and uninterested.’
The backlash begins?
But is there a backlash brewing? Could it be time for a new era of privacy? ‘My mother’s generation used to call it “washing your dirty linen in public” and you didn’t do it,’ says Pat Doonbar. It seems that what we lost in immediate emotional contact from strangers, we gained from greater self-containment.
And there are potential costs of oversharing. ‘People have a false sense of security on the internet,’ says internet security adviser Graham Cluley of Sophos. ‘They’re happy to post about their hobbies, pets, teachers, friends – and their intimate personal experiences.’ Any determined malefactor could piece those details together.
Meanwhile, CVs that include baby pictures and information about pets are unlikely to get very far. ‘Potential employers are not interested in your life story,’ says a spokeswoman for recruitment specialists Manpower. ‘They want to keep it concise.’ They want you to be a good worker – not an instant friend. To appear otherwise is unprofessional.
Indeed, there are definite benefits of withholding emotive information, particularly in the dating game. Back in my dating years, I found myself dining with a promising woman and all was going well until she came out with the following line: ‘My family are all screwed up but you’ll learn about that in due course.’
That sort of comment just isn’t attractive; as life coach Gladeana McMahon explains, ‘You can frighten people off by giving out too many details about your life. It appears needy.’
And if oversharing is bad for women, it’s terrible for men. New York Times journalist Maureen Dowd, in her new book Are Men Necessary? rails against the ‘overtherapied, oversharing and over-emoting “emo-boys”… metrosexuals who get facials and boy-wrinkle cream and wear pink flowered shirts’. Females prefer problem-solving, resourceful men rather than guys who want to unburden over a latte.
Yes, I wager that discretion, once the better part of valour, will make a comeback and oversharing will be seen as undignified. Meanwhile, don’t tell about your liposuction or love life – I don’t want to know.
Keep it to yourself
– Good manners are essentially all about making people feel comfortable, and they may not feel comfortable if they are hearing too much personal information.
– Take mobile calls from those who might have unpleasant or upsetting news where you have privacy.
– Don’t be too free discussing personal topics with co-workers, unless you socialise outside the office with them.
– All too often, oversharing goes with the lack of ability to lsten. Be attentive to others, and remember your own boundaries and comfort.
– Stay safe online – particularly with regard to young people and teenagers.
The Daily Waffle 