Oooooo, Webster's New World Dictionary has chosen their Word of the Year and it's "oversharing". It means "to divulge excessive personal information". Been there, sat through that, wondered how to politely escape from it.
It happens on buses. Some people like to talk to bus drivers as if they were bar tenders. This means there is way too much detail given about the person's life to the bus driver and everyone else within hearing distance. Maybe getting off the bus one stop early is a good idea today.
It happens in drug stores on weekday mornings. And you know the conversations in the drug store are going to be about health issues... it makes that product on the shelf way over there extremely interesting all of a sudden. I wonder if that's how they sell a lot of products in drug stores, they put the visually inviting products in strategic areas so people can edge away from other's conversations politely.
Oversharing is also at an almost epidemic level on the Internet. This very interesting article from the New York Times describes the experience of a blogging-addict, for lack of a better term (warning, it's a long article). I've been wondering how many people are actually hitting the wall and feeling that they are oversharing their thoughts and feelings with the world. If it's the word of the year, maybe it's a substantial number of people. Interesting.
No comments:
Post a Comment