When Oversharing Fails…
The experiment I did was The Oversharer. I messaged a friend I met because of a concert a few years ago but had not spoken to in a while. I began messaging her when I woke up, at around 10am (it was the weekend). I began by messaging that I had just woken up and gotten out of bed. This is a normal message I send to friends, so it wasn’t breaking any norms I’ve established and that she wasn’t aware of. She replied, saying that it was only ten and that she was still in bed. So far, it was going well. Our conversation continued for a little bit normally. But I continued to overshare as I continued with my morning routine, messaging once when I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth and again once I returned to my room. And that’s when the experiment fell apart.
I sent my messages about brushing my teeth and was questioned as to why I was sending the messages since we hadn’t spoken in a while. All in all, the experiment lasted less than an hour. I knew it wasn’t going to last long, mostly because I’m a fairly private person. It would have been out of the ordinary for me, even if I was talking to my closest friends. I felt awkward throughout a lot of the process because of this. But not only was I breaking norms set for myself, I was also breaking norms that society has set for social interactions. I was providing too much information about my life… who tells someone when they are brushing their teeth?
By messaging someone with whom I had an offline relationship initially, that later moved online due to distance, I was also breaking some norms regarding our relationship to each other. Concert friends are normally ones you get close to while at the show, and then later maybe stay in touch only if you’re going to the city where you met (if you know they’re local) or if another concert is coming up. Sometimes though, you maintain a strong tie for a little while and then it becomes a weak one over time. That was the case of this friendship. We were close friends for a while, but then started drifting away as other factors came into play.
Though I was breaking a lot of norms, I do not think they were any norms that were specific to certain technologies. I think updating anyone that I know in an offline context that I was going to brush my teeth and that I returned from brushing my teeth would break the norm just as easily as if I did it through text. I think in some contexts, there are specific norms, but I didn’t break any of those through this experiment. This also connects to Baym’s discussion of self-presentation. Both online and off, I present myself as a very private person, so this experiment disrupted that self-presentation. It affected how my friend reacted and how I felt conducting the experiment, which I found interesting.
Overall, the experiment was very interesting to conduct. Even though it failed very quickly, the idea of oversharing to see what would happen was one I was invested in enough to be excited about doing it for an entire 24-hour period. I was surprised by that, and it made me realize that my self-presentation online affects my offline life more than I may have initially thought.
