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We are very skilled at recognizing the risks of oversharing.

We are not so good at noticing the risks of saying too little.

People can't connect with what they don't know about you.

Developing awareness for the "invisible edit" can make you a more open and vibrant person.

Every day we have conversations in our minds that never take place in real life. Maybe you hear a story and think: “That happened to me too, only in a slightly different way.” Perhaps you want to offer a compliment but stop yourself, or you recognize a vulnerability or a need in yourself or others, but almost as soon as the thought comes in, it exits, never making it past your lips. There’s a whole internal world of thoughts that may never make it to the level of a spoken sentence.

We are very good at recognizing the risks of oversharing; what we might be underestimating are the risks of revealing too little.

Leslie John, a behavioral scientist at Harvard Business School, found that we tend to focus on the risks of disclosing while underestimating the social costs of withholding. Across multiple contexts, John and her colleagues found that people often prefer those who reveal themselves over those who choose to withhold information, even when the information shared is potentially embarrassing. For example, in one study,........

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