Have you ever seen a status update or tweet and thought, I can\u2019t believe someone would share that online? <\/em>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\u2019s personal life.<\/p>\n

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<\/em>. What this means is that when you log online and post something, you\u2019re 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 \u2013 closer family, friends, and maybe even coworkers. But we may forget that our network extends out pretty far, and we end up \u201coversharing\u201d details about our lives to our extended networks.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Understanding that broadcasting out to everyone risks anyone<\/em> seeing your posts is the first step in managing your online presence.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 <\/em>nataliepennington.com<\/em><\/a> and hear more about her thoughts on technology on Twitter and Instagram: @natpenn.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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