@Westenberg | The Art of Not Sharing
It’s a typical Monday morning. You wake up, reach for your phone, and within seconds, you’re scrolling through an endless stream of updates.
Your college roommate has a new puppy. Your aunt’s dog just died. Your coworker made homemade sourdough bread. Your second cousin just broke up with their partner. Very, very publicly.
And before long, you’re adding to the noise. You’re posting about your early morning fog, your seasonal depression. That crushing existential dread. Etc.
Without realising it, you’ve consumed and shared more personal information with the people in your life before your first cup of coffee than your grandparents did in a month.
This constant input and output of information, this ceaseless sharing of our lives, has become so normalized that we barely notice it anymore. It seems like innocuous behavior. But there are psychological, social, and emotional consequences that we’re only beginning to understand.
The urge to share is deeply human. From the earliest cave paintings to our ancestors’ oral storytelling traditions, we’ve always found ways to communicate our experiences to others. Social media has amplified this urge to unprecedented levels. With just a few taps on a screen, we can instantly share our thoughts, feelings, and experiences with hundreds or even thousands of people. It’s a power that would have seemed almost godlike just a few decades ago.
