Hi world and Comm 245, my name is Emily Abramson and I’m a freshman here at Cornell University in the School of Hotel Administration. I’m from a smallish town in southwestern Connecticut named Westport, which is right on the coast of Long Island Sound. Right now, however, I live in Bauer Hall in the Court-Kay-Bauer Community, also known as the “Court Resort”. I love skiing, both for leisure and racing giant slalom, and scuba diving, as well as listening to music, watching movies, cooking, and traveling. Even though I’m a Hotelie, I still have no idea what I want to do with my life, but I guess I have four years to figure that out.
The internet-related phenomenon that interests me most, as unoriginal as it is, is the universal obsession with sites like Facebook. In particular, it intrigues me how people are judged based on their profile page, the groups they are in, and the pictures they’ve posted. It seems so easy to jump to conclusions based on what can be seen on a person’s profile, when in reality, there is usually so much more to that person. Sites like Facebook and MySpace can reveal what music you listen to, what activities you participate in, and what you look like, but they rarely give insight into what a person’s personality is like.
The internet space that Facebook falls under would be the asynchronous discussion forum. With features like wall posts, groups, and discussion boards, users are free to log in and out and participate whenever they want to without the time-constraints posed by chat rooms and instant messaging. However, the other media connected to Facebook falls under other internet space classifications. Private messaging, for example, could be considered a form of email since it is sent to one or several specific people privately. Ultimately, however, Facebook was created to be an asynchronous discussion forum.
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3 comments:
Hi,
I completely agree with you that Facebook, and other similar websites, is an addictive pastime for many. Judging other Facebookers by just viewing their profile picture or browsing over their hobbies and interests is an almost inherent thing to do. People may say don’t judge a book by its cover but does anyone ever follow that concept? Personally, I don’t think so. We may perhaps judge less often but it’s a bad habit that sneaks up on us sometimes without warning. It’s also so much harder to get to know someone online as opposed to getting to know someone in person because of nonverbal actions and the lack of face to face interactions. I do agree with you that Facebook is an asynchronous forum as people leave wall posts and do so whenever convenient. Although rare, Facebook could also be synchronous, as people could be logged on at the same time and have a conversation with one another through wall postings. This has happened to me a couple times but it’s atypical. You’re a very intriguing writer!
Hi Emily,
My name is Katherine and I, too, love to ski during winter breaks, listen to music 24/7, cook food from the Food Network, and travel the world. Talking from experience, I wouldn’t worry too much about not having a vision in life yet as a freshman; you have four great years ahead of you at Cornell to figure that out and find the one true passion in life that you can see yourself pursuing.
I, too, am fascinated with the whole idea behind Facebook and how easily false judgments are made from a person’s profile page. There is only so much information that can be presented on a person's profile page to enable others to make an informed and accurate judgment about that person. When I was first introduced to Facebook, I remember inadvertently paying close attention to the profile pages of others to access how much the information presented in their profiles matched who they were in real life. I am not certain whether it was to impress others, i.e. prospective college classmates, but the majority of them provided only certain aspects about themselves that did not truly provide a holistic image of them in real life. Hence, I am interested to learn more about how the amount of information, such as our interests, and our specific interests, such as our favorite musicians or movies, presented in our profiles affects the perceptions of others.
Emily, I really enjoyed your post and thanks to you I have been able to give more thought into the intricate psychology behind Facebook. I hope you, too, have enjoyed reading my perspective on Facebook as well.
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