When you hear about oversharing, it often has to do with the internet. There are mommy bloggers who document every child’s step to Twitter users who write novels 140 characters at a time, Instagrammers who snap photos of every meal and Facebookers who share photos of weddings, babies, and so much more. We live in a world where sharing life details is now the norm.
In certain cases, we are no longer just sharing, we are broadcasting and telling rather than showing what sharing really means. But all of that is about to change. Again.
Welcome to the sharing economy. Beyond our life online, we can now share cars, nannies, apartments, offices, bikes, clothes and food. Forget about just talking to a stranger on the Internet – try sharing a couch with him. We have made our world so elastic, we now pay for the incremental usage of things, people or space. In the end, it seems like a deal because we don’t have to bear the cost of each service on our own. Beyond the like, favorite or retweet, we share the burdens of modern life with those around us. And it is working out really well.
Now an entire day can be spent taking part in the sharing economy. Buy a dress from Rent the Runway, take a Lyft to get to your next event, stay the night in an apartment rented on AirBnb. Oversharing on the internet has translated into real life. But with real life comes real consequences. That’s where an organization like Peers.org steps in.
Peers.org was started in San Francisco by a smart woman named Natalie Foster to harness the energy around the sharing economy and give it a unified voice in front of policy makers and the public. A lot of the business behind the sharing economy is unregulated and as such, aspects of it have become targeted by legislators who are not used to this new way of doing things. Just as factory workers and teachers had to unionize to get better wages and a better standard of living, the individuals and companies behind the sharing economy are joining together to make sure this new economic model not only succeeds, but it can thrive in cities across America.
Suddenly it seems that the basic right of preservation of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness has translated into whether or not we have the ability to do one simple action: share.
