Even Teens Think Other Teens Share Too Much Online

When Richard Desjardin,16, scrolls down his newsfeed on Facebook, he gets annoyed when he sees that some of his friends have updated their statuses six times in the last ten minutes.

“Why do I need to know that your dog just took his first bath? I don’t even care,” he said.

Complaints like Richard’s have become increasingly common among young social media users.

“If you’re in the party tweeting about how poppin’ the party is, then the party isn’t that live,” said Chris Rivera, 21. “Or you’re a lame for sitting in the corner on your phone.”

Many teens are becoming fed up with their friends who tell everyone, everything that happens in their lives, all the time.

“There’s no need to put your whole life on Facebook,” said Bruce Simms, 17. “Updating your status that many times is pointless.”

Some teens believe that every detail of their personal lives should be on the Internet while others consider this excessive sharing.

Not only is it pointless and annoying, “It’s just way too much information,” said Raychelle Lohmann, former high school counselor, psychologist and author. She noticed some teens have an “impulsive need to respond to messages the instant they are received” and to update their statuses periodically.

“People don’t need a play by play of your day,” said Lohmann.

Teens like Marc Cancel, 16, agree with this. He really hates when people update too much, saying that when people post too much he cannot see what “other people are talking about today.”

He posts a couple times a day, and sometimes every other day if he is really busy.

Similarly, Richard tries not to update his status more than six times a day to avoid being annoying. He said he posts to let people know when he’s busy and when he becomes available again to avoid having people call or text him while he is doing something important.

However other teens post more frequently.

“I post what happens,” said Angelica Chin, 16. “It’s called a status update for a reason.”

Whenever something happens that she finds “interesting or funny” she posts it on either Facebook or Twitter. She admitted to posting once and hour most of the time, and even said she had posted multiple times in ten minutes on more than one occasion.

“It’s my Facebook” said Angela Ali. “I don’t care what people think about me. I can post whatever I want, whenever I want, and if you don’t like it then block me or delete me.”

However, “It’s not just your Facebook when you’ve invited all your friends to view it,” Lohmann said.

“I hate seeing the same person update their status so much, it starts to clog my newsfeed and time line,” Rivera said.

When Richard and Marc see that people are updating too much, or updating about things they do not care about, they either block them on Twitter, or remove them from their newsfeed on Facebook. Neither however, would go as far as to delete them from their friends.

“It’s not serious enough to delete them, they’re just status updates” Marc said.

However, “If you’re sitting there updating your status that much, then you can’t really be doing anything important,” Richard said.