TMI is Too Much Information. It’s become the scourge of our lives, IMHO, which means In My Humble Opinion.
Blogs, even such as this, can easily be TMI. Knowing how much we know about each other, and every minute piece of detail on every celebrity, politician or neighbor is all just… TM. Too Much.
When do we reach the point of overwhelmed? And what do you do when you reach that point?
Cut yourself off? Run? Hide? Escape?
I suppose the point is that you need to—you must— find your own balance, your own control. Does that mean cutting off reading this blog? Surely not!! (LOL)
It just means realizing that you can—and should—find a way to turn off the faucet, in whatever way you deem necessary. For me, it just means ignoring. (Mind you, I didn’t say ignorance!) I like being “aware” and “astute” as much as the next guy. But I finally realized that I just don’t need to read every tweet and Facebook posting about everyone and everything…
I used to obsess, a bit, thinking that I was going to miss something good. But now, if I see a picture of a plate of food, I zoom right by. If it starts with “Bugsy and I decided to see a movie tonight…” I quickly scroll by.
I don’t know where, or when, this obsession to “share everything” really began. I’m sure some social demographer knows. Probably at the advent of some app, or maybe it was just at the start of Facebook?
But really: When did it become cool to post things like “Today is the day I start to clean out the garage! I’m really digging in and finding lots of old magazines!” or “Frank and I shared a terrific piece of cheesecake last night at Zanzibar’s. Wow was it tasty!”
These are all things that we’ve all done for years, and years. These are all things that are called “normal occurrences,” and we used to never give any of this a second thought. But now… it’s shared among friends, like it’s useful information.
It’s not.
Really, just think about it before you post that photo of the first crocus that came up in your front yard. (We probably all have seen them.) Or the time your dog was caught sleeping on your sofa. Oh, that naughty dog!
No, really. Think about it. Is this unique or unusual, or unimportant and uninspired? The former are really the only things that most everyone would want to read or see. A photo of a plate of pasta or an a tiramisu is really, in the grand scheme of things, not what what we need to know.
It’s TMI.