"Here's what I mean by containment: It's not about stuffing your feelings down or pretending everything's peachy when it's not. Think of it more like curation with intention. It's the ability to hold your emotional experience long enough to decide where it belongs and with whom it should live. Psychological research backs this up in fascinating ways. A recent study found that anxiety, attention-seeking behavior, and social media addiction all predict higher levels of oversharing online among adolescents."
"I was standing in the emergency room waiting area a few months ago (don't worry, everything's fine), and I couldn't help but notice the woman next to me live-tweeting her mother's medical crisis. Updates every three minutes. Vitals. Doctor names. Prayer emoji requests. The whole nine yards. And I found myself wondering: When did we collectively decide that every single moment-especially the hard ones-needed an audience?"
Containment involves holding emotions long enough to decide where and with whom they should live, functioning as intentional curation rather than suppression. Excessive public broadcasting of emotional moments, such as live-tweeting a family medical crisis with minute-by-minute updates, transforms processing into performance and can amplify distress. Research links anxiety, attention-seeking, and social media addiction to higher levels of oversharing among adolescents. Constant broadcasting creates emotional labor for others and can be exhausting. Learning to share selectively increases authenticity and emotional stability while reducing unnecessary distress for both sharers and their audiences.
Read at Psychology Today
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