A common pet peeve of mine, and of many social media users, are people who constantly post. While social media, almost by definition, is a place to express yourself and share ideas, there is definitely such a thing as oversharing.

Considering that most people don’t want to be considered an annoyance, the expert Social Media Justice Warriors at blendverse are here to provide you with some simple tools (and equations) to ensure you aren’t posting too much.

An important factor to keep in mind is that not all posts are created equal. For different types of posts the social media community at large has different thresholds of tolerance. Posts can generally be split into six categories: political, personal, sports and games, holidays, special occasions, and miscellaneous. The definitions of each are:

1. Political: Mostly self-explanatory, anything about history, politics, or policy.
2. Personal: This means your personal feelings, vacations, religious posts, relationships etc.
3. Sports and Games: Posts about sports, video games, or other type of game fits here.
4. Holiday: Refers to posts on and about events such as Christmas, Fourth of July, and Halloween. This is about major holidays only; posts about Arbor Day don’t fit in here.
5. Special occasions: The most forgiving category, posts only fit into this area on very special occasions such as your wedding, your graduation, or moving to a new area. Remember, special occasions only…a good hair day is not a special occasion, nor is your three week anniversary…or really any anniversary for that matter.
6. Miscellaneous: Post doesn’t fit into any of the above? It’s probably here. This includes sharing of YouTube videos, posts at others’ expense, etc.

Now, in order to determine whether you are posting too much on social media, here is the official blendverse formula (patent pending):

 Total # of Daily Posts-(3(Political)-3)-(2{Personal)-1)-(2(Sports and Games)-2)-(Holidays-1)-((Miscellaneous-1)/2)+((Special Occasions)/2-(2(Total # of Daily Posts)-2))=Result

In order to use the formula, look at all the posts you have on social media on a specific day. Divide those posts up into the six aforementioned categories.  Plug the number of each category into the corresponding variable in the formula, but only use the variables and parentheticals which apply to you, do not put a 0 in for any variable. Finally, do the math (or use a calculator because that is where we are at as a society). If your result is zero or higher then congratulations, you aren’t posting too much! If your result is negative, meaning lower than zero, then you post too much.

What are the takeaways from the formula? First, diversify. Diversifying the types of posts you make helps you avoid the negative side of the equation because people dislike seeing posts over and over again about the same things. If all you make is political posts, people are going to just get bored of you and your opinions and look elsewhere on social media for entertainment.

Second, critical thinking is key. Critically thinking about a post before posting it is key.  Don’t waste your daily allotment of posts on something subpar. Just because you find something interesting doesn’t mean everyone else will…in fact they probably won’t find it interesting at all.

Third, just don’t post too much. There really is no reason to post that much on social media unless it is literally your job, so just take it easy and go do something else…take a walk, grab a drink, or go to a museum.  Live your life…but then again you will probably just talk about whatever you did later on social media anyway, you addict.

For those of you who are not mathematically inclined or lazy, you can use the Blendverse simplified formula which is almost as accurate as the full formula. The simplified formula is: X If X, the number of posts per day, is higher than one…you post too much. It’s that simple.

Stop clogging up our feeds and go do something productive.

– Jesse Isleman, Social Media Justice Warrior