Social media has become the means of communication since the late 90’s till now. It created its own culture where there are certain ways and unwritten rules as to how people should do things the way they do online. This type of culture created dissonance between the virutal and normal life behaviour.
My whole journey started with hotmail messenger (MSN), and it is basically a chatting box between two peoples emails just like SMS texting. However, due to the scarcity of connecting to the internet and using the computer or laptop in order to get on there still gives a lot of time to have a private life. Eventually, it all gradually started to change with more social websites emerging and the upgrade of technology devices where touch screens became the new medium of connecting everything to everything. Just a tap away you can connect to millions and millions of people.
The irony in this situation is that social media is supposed to connect, but what it has done is virtually (artificially) connect, and reality disconnect. It has brought people together and kept long-distance relationships bearable which is something I truly am grateful for. However, it also turned to something toxic to plenty whether they would like to admit it or not.
It has become a place to show off social status, and to put distinction between the popular people and non-popular people. All this existed in real life, but there were no tangible evidence to shove up in the face of people and remind them daily that there are always other people better than them.
There are multiple reasons behind why I overshare on social media, and it is mostly either to fight the social conflict mentioned earlier or due to mood disorders. I have hinted before in couple articles or even wrote about depression and how much it affects my life. It is mostly genetic on my side of the story, but there are other reasons as to why would someone get depression. However I would like to take advantage of this topic here and explain the scientific part of it.
Even though I would like it very much to go the nerdy side of this explanation and go deeply into what is going on, but I know there are people out there who would like things to be short and fast, so I will try my best to relay the message as clear and informative as possible.
Just like how some people have diabetes, blood pressure, and other illnesses as a hereditary factor in the genes mental illnesses play part in genetics as well. Diabetes, for example is a lack of Insulin which breaks sugar molecules down, Depression in parallel is a lack of Seretonin in the body system. There are other hormones that play part in depression, but mostly we are going to focus on Seretonin. Seretonin is known as the happy chemical because it plays a big part with the happiness and satisfaction emotion. Therefore, it is illogical to just tell depressed people to just get over it and they should not exaggerate things because it is on a chemical and neurological level. Just like any illness it has it’s own physiological problems that should be understood and respected.
Here comes the oversharing aspect, where due to depression and isolation, a crave for social interaction can become an addiction. The fact that there is a lack of the happy chemicals in the system and for every reaction one gets there is a dopamine kick which is also related to the reward system and is mostly the reason of why people get addicted to drugs.
In conclusion, the reasons behind why I overshare are due to some need of social interaction and also giving out some good vibes and reminder of how a normal genuine life should be like out there.
Salma Daboul | Philosophy سلمى دعبول 