TMI. Please STFU.

I love Twitter.  I’m instantly connected to people I don’t normally talk to on a regular basis and people I wouldn’t know otherwise.  I can make plans with friends easily by putting something out there rather than texting, saving me a few seconds and making the conversation a bit more fun.  I can laugh at people’s jokes and hopefully get a few laughs myself with my ramblings.  It’s like a mass conversation that travels everywhere with you.  Sometimes, that’s not the best thing in the world.

There is definitely such a thing as over sharing and it happens all too often on Twitter.  The absolute worst offenders, and the ones that are making me tear my hair out lately, are the ones who have slightly too personal a conversation and end up nauseating the poor souls who follow them both and will see the entire conversation play out.  Before you call me a hypocrite, trust me when I say that my husband and I do not get into super personal things via Twitter with each other, nor do we have conversations that drag on and on, nor do we seek out to make people uncomfortable.  At least not as a team anyway.

Let me be clear, I am not talking about people who post updates about what’s going on, post a photo of their party planning, check in with their friend/love to see what’s going on later, or anything like that.  There is nothing wrong at all with talking to someone on Twitter and having a conversation on whatever subject comes to mind.  Getting a bit raunchy or a tad romantic is fine.  Making plans for lunch or a wild party later on is great too.  But there’s a line drawn in the sand that when crossed, can make your followers cringe.  While I’m incredibly satisfied with my husband’s equipment, I wouldn’t take to Twitter to compliment his downstairs because I know that absolutely no one but him wants to hear it and I’m not a thoughtless jerk who doesn’t care whether or not people are uncomfortable.

Part of me thinks that people who over share on social media (without privacy settings, making them visible to all) are simply starved for attention.  They want you to know what a sick party they are throwing, and even though you are not invited, you will feel like you are there as they tweet nonstop to attendees and fill your timeline with a conversation that could better be handled via text message.  They want to make sure you’re aware of the crazy sex they’re having with their hot new guy/girl by throwing innuendo all over the place, making your timeline look like a cheap romance novel.  You are their audience, whether you like it or not, forced to see their constant back and forth about horrible nonsense that is surely murdering your brain cells as you scan past it.

The solution is simple and obvious; unfollow one or both of the over sharers and unclog your timeline, freeing it of conversations that no one but the involved parties need or want to see.  Sadly, it’s near impossible to convince these types of people that they are doing anything wrong, as they are no doubt confident that their Twitter audience is captivated by their drivel.  As much as it would bother me to cut out a friend or acquaintance on Twitter, it bothers me more that I can’t get a break from the inner workings of their “exciting” lives.  I’m at the point where it’s just going to take one more pointless conversation filled with intimate details and personal garbage for me to become best friends with that unfollow button.