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Facebook over-sharing means I know more about people I spoke to 20 years ago than my REAL friends

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Facebook over-sharing means I know more about people I spoke to 20 years ago than my REAL friends

News just in: green is the new black… or, in other words, jealousy could be good for you.

So reckons a journalist at the Wall Street Journal, anyway, who writes that seething with envy over the good fortune of others – when you read about it online, for example – could spur you on to achieve more yourself.

I’m as intimidated by highbrow Wall Street Journal-ists as I am by the Facebook friends’ boasts I’m meant to be inspired by so I won’t argue with this theory.

But it did make me wonder ­something.

How come social media has made it ok to out-and-out brag, in a way you never would (hopefully, unless you’re awful) in real life?

Particularly as, chances are, the noses you’re rubbing in it are mostly situated on faces you vaguely ­recognise but can’t quite place, with a few complete and utter strangers thrown in for good measure.

Why is this way of behaving now totally acceptable?

I know more intimate details about the personal lives of people I last had conversations with 20 years ago than actual friends I spoke to yesterday… because things you’d never dream of sharing in person are happily being strewn about all over the internet.

Apparently some of us are now so comfortable on social media that we forget – or don’t care? – who’s looking… unlike those of us who can actively feel them watching, with added laughing and pointing.

No one (surely?) would ever go up to even their very closest friends and announce, that they really love their husband and feel lucky to have married him.

And yet, I’ve read that exact ­statement on my news feed ­countless times, written by someone I barely know.

It’s nice they feel that way, but this person they’re so in love with… do they not have his direct contact details?

Could they not just tell him, without having to make sure all other human beings with internet access have seen them tell him?

Is it like a tree falling in the woods – if no one’s there to watch, did it possibly not happen?

Equally, whenever I see anyone insisting that they are “blessed”, particularly if there’s a hashtag in front of it, I assume the exact ­opposite is true.

Ditto anyone who reckons they’ve had a “perfect” day/night/sandwich/experience of any kind.

It’s also bewildering when people show off about stuff everyone’s meant to do or feel anyway – like “My kids mean the world to me” and “I just ate some food”.

Why draw the line there?

Why not “I have breathed oxygen in and out for my whole life, and always made it look ­effortless” or “I haven’t murdered anyone today”?

If there are two weeks – or any amount of time, ­actually – until you go on holiday, no one cares but you and whoever you’re going with.

Been promoted?

Save the news for people who could reveal where you work if their very lives depend on it, rather than me, who seriously couldn’t.

If you’re proud of something your child’s done, why not tell them instead of typing it… particularly when said kid can’t read yet and isn’t on social media anyway.

I’d estimate that well over three quarters of the time I’m on Facebook is spent growling at annoying ­indiscretions like the ones mentioned here.

I think the ­technical term is “hate-reading”.

Obviously I will now explain why I don’t just delete my account and never look back… oh dear, I’ve run out of room.

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