When does sharing become oversharing?

I’m a chronic oversharer on social media — and usually an intentional one. Mostly, I write about my severe mental health struggles and things that deeply enrage me, but that constant oversharing can be hard to maintain. As much as I post, I delete a lot too, either because posts are too vulnerable, too hurtful, or too likely to spark conflict. It’s hard to know if the defiant overshares are really helping, or if I’m just worried about how a judgmental world will respond.

The intimacy of social media can lead us to share a lot, and being vulnerable in those spaces can give us a rare sense of power. The #MeToo movement brought on a flood of women disclosing their experiences with sexual violence and other issues, leading to increased accountability for perpetrators, a deeper sense of community for survivors, and greater education around consent. Yet at other times, sharing can have unexpected negative consequences, like shaming, security issues, or professional and personal conflict. But if the whole point is to share something, how should we think about the choice of what to share and what not to share?

Christopher Hand, a lecturer at Glasgow Caledonian University who studies online harassment, says the benefits are hard to peel apart from the risks. “We live in a world that seems to be riddled with double-edged swords,” Hand told me, “things that have clear positives and clear constructive applications, but that are also vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation.”

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