We’ve got a problem. . .

Guys, there’s a big problem a-brewin’ over on Facebook. (You know you all love FB. Stop denying and just embrace.)

Well, I guess calling it a problem isn’t really the right terminology. It’s more like a disease or an infection. And it’s spreading fast.

You ask: What IS she talking about?

I’m talking about Status Update Overload. Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. You all see these updates in your Live Feed (or whatever it’s called now) and you keep on scrolling. There the ones that take up a significant amount of space on your home page and annoy you to no end (well, at least annoy me).

In my mind, there are two kinds of Status Update Overload offenders. First are the TMI Status Overloaders. These people just tell you way more than you wanted to know in their status updates. They share about the minutia of their lives, including what and when they ate (which is sometimes newsworthy if it’s something AMAZING, but this quickly becomes overload when people share it every day. Because that’s not news. Everybody eats dinner. At least I’d like to think so). These people might tell you too much about their relationships with significant others or overshare in other ways. The point is that TMI oversharers simply say too much for the public forum that we often forget Facebook is.

The second kind of Status Overload offender are those who have been to a concert/conference/church service or read a book/watched a movie/TV show and just have to quote something to you. OK, that’s fine if it’s a few phrases or a couple of sentences. It’s just not OK if it’s an entire paragraph. Yes, I understand you want to share what you’ve learned and you’ve just heard something amazingly astounding that rocked your world and made you think another way. I understand that. But blog about it. The concept of a status update is that you share what you’re up to. The idea is a short description or thought, not an entire block of text that takes up half of your profile page. I understand that these people want to inspire or encourage or inform, but when your status update goes past two sentences, it’s no longer a status update; it’s a Facebook note or a blog post.

The key, my friends, to a good Facebook status update is the key to good journalism: say what you need to say to get the point across and nothing more. Brevity and conciseness should still be valued.

You don’t have to agree with me, but I’m willing to bet you scroll right past some of those Dostoevsky-long status updates. You just won’t admit it!