The question:

Is it natural for people to want to broadcast everything about themselves online? I hear this sentiment occasionally and have asked the same thing myself. It is, of course, a novel idea. Before the internet, there was no option to post selfies, food pics, and every-day thoughts and opinions for the world to see.

It does seem a bit self-absorbed, doesn't it? Who are we to presume that others would care what we think? I think these question bely a more common reality that we would rather ignore.

My response

1. We undermine our critique of social media every time we log in and consume it. You can very easily stop seeing banal posts by not getting on Facebook in the first place, or unfollowing the user. If you really don't care, don't look at it.
2. Yes, it's natural because it scratches a fundamental itch (natural doesn't mean good). We're all self-absorbed to some degree. We want to be appreciated, usually more-so than we appreciate others.
3. Sometimes the things you have to say or share will bless other people. Not every post is a banger, but surely there's some wheat among the chaff.
4. We complain about social media being a curated "best of" reel that doesn't paint a true picture of someone's life, but if someone posts things that are banal or that we don't like, we complain that that is "better left offline". We like to judge people.
5. Pre-internet, the information would have been shared through gossip or just regular communication. We live in a world divided by technology, and by that I don't mean our "devices," I mean our homes, vehicles, supermarkets. We're divided by the things that make life convenient and keep us physically separated. We still want to share information but don't have an outlet for it except the internet. The information would have gotten out in "the olden days" another way. No, it would not have been readily accessible to someone in another part of the world, but is that really the heart of the above critique?
6. It's where we are. We have the opportunity, and apart from safety concerns, there's no compelling reason not to share things publicly. Yes, mass communication at your fingertips is a novel phenomenon, but it's not going away (except for a global catastrophe).