The term “TMI,”or “too much information,” originated toward the end of the 1990s, around the time when mobile technology was just taking its first steps. It was later adopted into the Internet Hall of Slang in the early 2000s, upon its spread through advancements like the internet and social media. 

A popular turn of phrase in the Digital Age, the concept of TMI encapsulates an unfortunate phenomenon that has become increasingly prevalent in recent years: the internet has erased all sense of personal boundaries.

Perhaps to say “all” might be a bit of an exaggeration, but there still remains the fact that many occupants of the world wide web are uncomfortably comfortable with sharing their private life online.

In this case, the aspects of the internet so harshly scrutinized for the sake of online safety become a boon for the quintessential oversharer.  Characteristics such as the lack of direct personal communication creates a false veneer of anonymity, where even those with their real identities connected to their internet personas feel less responsible for their actions.

Especially since posters of such content are separated from their messages by a screen, there is often a sentiment of disconnect between one’s social media profile and the behavior they present in public.

The lack of authority figures, too, allows netizens to let loose with their inhibitions and reveal information they would normally only share with trusted friends and family. So-called “bios”, short for biographies and meant to carry the same sentiment in the descriptions they contain, have devolved into a sort of tell-all where people put their dietary restrictions and mental illness—information normally only shared with their medical providers.

Incidentally, a few of the many positive features of the internet also bear responsibility for recent fads like “trauma dumping,” a term which describes the unsolicited sharing of deeply personal information and has been proven by psychologists to leave both the oversharer and their unwilling audience feeling worse than they were before.

Such occurrences come as a result of the interconnectivity that the internet provides, which tends to foster a sense of community among users. This lends itself to people opening up and revealing information they may never be able to take back, a doubly distressing occurrence, as the internet is infamous for the eternity of what it circulates.

But the web’s many and varied functions aside, what the chronically online also forget is that the internet is not a void, and that there exist entire communities of people who will see and respond to every post on the sites they frequent.

Sure, in the heat of the moment, it might feel great to vent about recent family drama or share every excruciating detail of a really eventful day to the 300-some followers one has on Instagram. But consider this fact: do these people, who are generally at the level of acquaintances or not especially close friends, really need or want to know all of this information?

And also, for the people who use social media primarily as a means of networking, do they even want to know all the gory details of someone’s personal life? Chances usually are that they don’t and were really just keeping in touch through social media, not subscribing to the equivalent of a personal diary.

Celebrity culture and reality television may have desensitized the public to the observance of total strangers’ home lives, but it must be said again that the internet is not a void. That which one posts may come with harmful or humiliating consequences, and, as they say, there is no medicine for regret. 

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