Allow me to introduce one of my biggest perennial pet peeves: the act of sharing way too much information.
Call it professionalism, paranoia, or common sense, when it comes to the ability to share information about each other and ourselves online, the old adage applies: “With great power comes great responsibility.”
At the low end of the spectrum, giving the world too much of yourself may be mildly entertaining (or in other cases annoying) to the other users who stumble across your Facebook page and can suddenly figure out how many times in a day you go to the washroom or re-blog embarrassing photos. On the other side of things, if you’re not careful it’s frighteningly easy to end up sharing information that could cause direct and serious harm to reputation, finances, and family members. A common phenomenon to all parts of this is the persistence of data, where hurtful comments and regrettable disclosures can come embarrassingly home to roost at a much later time, sometimes years or decades down the road thanks to today’s perfect storm of automated archiving services and unpredictable human interfaces.