Last week's article in the NY Times about women posting their grievances online about their exes made me wonder where people are drawing the line at privacy anymore. One woman made a YouTube video divulging way too much information about her soon-to-be ex, and others are blogging about their breakups as they happen.

I'm all for catharsis, and these women may get some needed support, but I think they're revealing too much and putting themselves up for close scrutiny. I've always been cautious about even changing my relationship status on MySpace or Facebook, and not because I'm a commitment-phobe, but because it encourages an outpouring of messages and posts asking me about it, and you know what? It's exhausting and I don't feel like sharing these kinds of details with people I haven't seen in years — aside from their changing profile pictures.
But have you? Fess up — have you ever over-shared on your blog, social networking profile page, or gasp! YouTube?!

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I use LiveJournal to 'pour my heart out' as it were.
Thing is...nobody has the address, I have a different-to-normal username, and I use privacy filters.
I'm not about to go spill my guts on the MySpace blog or something like that!
1Definitely NOT. Why even keep the relationship status on facebook? There's an option not to display that, I use it. Why should I tell everyone if I've broken up or if its 'serious'?
2i keep what's private, private, but if others out there want to make the most personal aspects of their lives public, fine. breakups are traumatizing; let people find therapy in any form that will help the work through the suck that is life after a breakup.
ditto on the facebook status thing--it's stupid and i don't use that function either.
3i used to spill my guts all the time on livejournal.
when i was in high school and college. then i decided maybe it was time to grow up a little and not seek validation from the internet.
4Yes, I have. I honestly feel there's nothing wrong with expressing yourself, as you are, yourself. Not everyone is blessed with good friends or the constitution of always keeping things to themselves. When you have no support system, you have to create it. I've never gone as far as posting videos about my gripes or complaints, but I have blogged on numerous occasions about things that some would see as "too much information".
I suppose I feel that if you have nowhere else to go, go to strangers.
5If i feel I need to publish something I do it under my fake internet name and I don't even spill too much out using that. I'm always very abstract. But I feel exactly the same way about the facebook status thing. When I had relationships which weren't serious I didn't use it at all. But now I've got serious boyfriend I gladly listed myself as in a relationship with him. It was hilarious when we were both changing our relationship status. We were online on msn talking about it, then he sent me a relationship request which I accepted. It was like exchanging rings
6I have a LiveJournal, but only a few people have the address, and I would never put anyone's name in it (except maybe my sister's or best friend's first names). Plus, I always use the privacy filters.
7I do use the Facebook relationship status, but by the time my boyfriend joined Facebook, we'd already been dating for a year and a half, so my being "In a relationship" wasn't news to anyone. I would never write to someone on Facebook and ask about a new relationship status... the closest I've come to that was to tell one of those people-you-knew-in-grade-school-but-don't-actually-talk-to-now friends that she was gorgeous when she changed her relationship status to single and her profile picture at the same time. I hope it helped and that she didn't see it as pity for the breakup... she does look great in the picture!
I do offer TMI on my LiveJournal on occasion. It's not freely available for everybody though. Only my closest RL friends have access to my LJ and if I feel they need to know about stuff that's TMI, I will spill all details. However, if the TMI is really no one's business, even if I'm just craving attention and just need to vent, not even my bestest friend will know about it from the internet and I'll just post a generic "Bleh..." post in its place XD Kinda sucks when I'm looking back at old entries and I'm like "OMG, why was I feeling this way at this time?!!?"
8lol. i find it funny how i find out about ppl more on facebook than in real life. its sometimes fun but sometimes.. well..not
9I am a very open person, as I have nothing to hide. I keep the most intimate details to myself. I don't talk about sex in detail or say anything disrespectful about anyone I love.
I also limit the number of real people that read my blog. My dad, for example, is not a subscriber.
Old friends and e-friends are welcome. I find it to be as cathartic as therapy. The only difference is that the insight usually given by a professional is instead learned by
myself.
10My now-husband had an ex with a big mouth...and unfortunately, they were part of the same tightly-woven social circle, which was full of more catty girls with even bigger mouths. THAT was a fun web to untangle...*grin*...NOT!!!
11http://community.livejournal.com/tmi_chix/
12Like many others on here, I have a Livejournal which I keep privacy filters on.m It is therapeutic for me to just be able to vent my feelings even if no one is reading it.
13it's saved as a "friends only" post or a filtered post - and even then, i don't write EVERYTHING about whatever drama i need to get out.
14i guess i'm supposed to know what TMI is?! but, no - i haven't dished about exes online anywhere.
15Nope.
I blog about things I think my online friends (yes I have them
) might find interesting. I have blogged about a medication I am on that I think people might want to know about, though. This includes talking about the pregnancy
tests I have to take for it, the blood tests, and the side effects I get.
16I write about everything on my livejournal... but I use privacy filters and I don't link to that journal from anywhere.
17It depends on what is considered too much information.
18But I'm very careful on what I say online because I fear that the involved person finds it.
I don't ever post intimate type details, though I will share my feelings about relationships in general. I don't share the blog address with anyone IRL so I think it is sometimes a good way to get an unbiased opinion on the subject matter.
19There is no such thing as privacy anymore. Everytime you shop with a store card, what you buy is recorded. Social networking, cameras everywhere...I wonder when the pedulum will swing the other way. Why do people need to document every freakin' thing? Ego city? Expression?
20i get mad and post status updates on Facebook. not details. but then i get people who feel the need to throw in their two cents in comments and i get even more upset. ugh
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