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'Tragic Oversharing' Turns Us Into Tweet Twits

Are we at risk of losing normal social skills?

By Matt Cantor, Newser Staff

Posted Apr 21, 2009 4:41 PM CDT

(Newser) – In the “Age of Oversharing,” Twitter is king—and that could be a bad sign for society, Meghan Daum writes in the Los Angeles Times. If Twitter were human, it would be the kind of person we'd avoid at parties, Daum writes: “emotionally unstable,” a “tragic oversharer” who’d make us feel “kind of gross because the friendship is unearned and the confidence is unjustified.” Yet instead of avoiding the phenomenon, we’re embracing it.

“It’s worth wondering how much of this ‘connecting’ is simply hastening the erosion of our already compromised interpersonal skills,” Daum writes. “Are we tweeting because we truly want to communicate with a select group of true friends, or because typing has replaced talking and indiscretion has been stripped of all negative connotations?”

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This image provided by CNN shows Ashton Kutcher, left, and Sean Combs during Larry King's interview with them about Twitter. (AP Photo/CNN Larry King Live)

This image provided by CNN shows Larry King interviewing Ashton Kutcher about their recent Twitter challenge. (AP Photo/CNN Larry King Live)

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Are most Twitter posts merely inane, or do they carry the faint whiff of the insane? - Meghan Daum

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'Tragic Oversharing' Turns Us Into Tweet Twits