TMI- Too Much Information

In one hundred and forty characters I can tell you what I am thinking or what I am doing. With a click of the mouse, I can scroll down a page and tell you what everyone else I follow is up to. I can just as easily go to another site and see the status updates of all my friends. Welcome to my generation, we use Twitter and Facebook, almost religiously. Twitter is a mini blog that allows its users to post updates, as well as follow other users and get their status updates. Facebook also gives you the ability to update your status and in addition will allow you to post on other’s wall, upload, and share photos.

Personally, I can say that I have updated my status on both sites, to tell people that the weather sucks, that my organization is hosting an event, or that I procrastinated and didn’t start my paper on time. Whatever, we update and keep you posted on what’s going on in our lives. Yet this presents my generation with a complex dilemma of just how much is too much. As we move forward and incorporate such technologies into our lives, we have to ask ourselves what information are we posting and just how much of our lives are we making accessible to whomever?

I am sure that at some point or another we have looked through the status updates of our friends and thought “damn, did I really need to know all that?!’ It happens, with status updates comes TMI, too much information. Sometimes I get all the bochinche I need from Twitter. Just looking through status updates allows me to see who is having a rough day, who broke up with who, and who drunk a bit too much at last night’s party. Aside from the usual concerns of a possible employer seeing these updates and what not, constantly updating your life on these sites can suck the fun and purpose out of a simple question like “what have you been up to?” Not being able to ask your friends that, eso si que es un problema.

Now, I do not believe that we need to stop using these sites and updating our statuses. As a matter of fact, I already know that my next status update is going to be something along the lines of “Check out my new piece on MiBodegaOnline.com! I think its’ ____________”. What I am proposing though is a new challenge to my generation. Let’s learn how to keep some secrets, remember how much fun they were when we were younger? Let’s make ourselves a little more mysterious, and let’s not put every single detail of our lives online. So next time you log on, instead of telling me and the world your exact thoughts, keep us guessing and asking questions.