Oversharing On Social Media Can Cause Serious Psychological And Social Impacts

JAKARTA - Too much personal information or sensitive events on social media or known as oversharing can have a negative impact, both on yourself and on others.

One of the consequences is the decline in sensitivity to privacy and empathy boundaries, especially when information shared concerns other people's tragedy or traumatic experiences.

Clinical psychologist from Wangaya Hospital in Denpasar, Bali, Nena Mawar Sari, said that oversharing behavior often arises from the desire to get social validation. In his explanation, he revealed that the urge to look caring or quick to provide information can make a person tempted to share content without thinking about its impact.

"Someone can feel that they get a confession when their upload gets a lot of responses, be it 'like', comments, or re-sharing. Even unpleasant content such as photos of accident victims can be part of an effort to get attention," said Nena as quoted by ANTARA, Wednesday, June 4.

He added that uploading images containing disaster victims, especially without the consent of the family or related parties, could cause new wounds, exacerbate trauma, and injure the values of empathy in the digital public sphere.

According to him, in order not to get caught up in harmful oversharing behavior, it is important for every social media user to understand the ethics of sharing information. Education about restrictions on empathy and social awareness needs to be introduced as early as possible, including within the family and children.

Furthermore, for people who are shaken by watching inappropriate or offensive content about past traumatic experiences, he suggested seeking professional help immediately.

"If painful content has spread widely and has an impact on mental conditions, it is better if the affected family or party schedules counseling or therapy sessions with psychologists for recovery," he explained.

This phenomenon has become a public spotlight after the spread of photos of tragic accidents experienced by Gadjah Mada University students. Some uploads even show the victim's condition explicitly, which was allegedly uploaded by someone closest to the perpetrator. The strong reactions from netizens show how important responsibility is in sharing information in cyberspace.