As Facebook has grown, the developers have gradually changed the nature of the profiles. Profiles are now much more customizable, particularly with the “applications” that can be added. As more customization is available, more information can be presented, although cues are not necessarily added. For instance the “graffiti” application might provide richer information as an observer can make inferences from drawing style, while the “political compass” is just a slightly more detailed classification than the original “political affiliation” part of the profile. One big change that was just announced was that profiles can be made public, and therefore reachable by search engines. The main effect this might have on deception in Facebook is that public profiles are now archived. While profiles were previously recordable only through someone actively taking a screenshot, but now any public profile will frequently be archived and can then be accessed again. This will likely result in less deception as recordless media yield the highest amount of deception.
In looking at my friend M’s profile, I came across very little overt deception. She rated every element of her profile as 5, with two exceptions. She said her photo albums rated 3 because while they were a representative set of pictures about her life, she only posted pictures “where I look cute.” Her Interests were also rated 2, as the only piece of information there is “understanding the meaning of life.” While this is not inaccurate, it is very incomplete. She has many interests that she just decided not to write. Her explanation was that the brief statement seemed more interesting than if she just listed the few activities she was involved in. Plus, her “About Me” section covered a fair amount of her interests. Both of these cases were not so much intentional deception as leaving out information to limit the image presented. This follows elements of the Hyperpersonal theory, in that with limited information, over-attribution occurs.
After verifying the information in her profile, I concluded that she was truthful about the overall lack of deception. She really did put her favorite movies, music, books, TV show, and contact info. She considers Facebook profiles to be recordable since anyone can keep track of what the profile says, and as a result did not lie about any facts. The deception she did was, in a way, the “explanation lies” that occur more often in asynchronous media. While the information was all true, she only included the information that she wanted to, and did not present her whole character. The emphasis on accurate, factual information follows the Media Richness Theory. With that theory, factual information fits better with an asynchronous, recordable media such as Facebook.
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5 comments:
Hi you!
It seems to me that your findings are extremely consistent with the findings of many others for this assignment, as your friend, “M” used an enormous amount of selective self-presentation as a way to manage her impressions. In order to convey the specific image that she wanted others to see her as, she deliberately choose which areas of her profile to include, as well as what specific conventional signals would add to this desired impression. Moreover, I think what she did in both her interests and about me sections is particularly interesting, and I disagree with you in regards to both of these areas not being intentional deception. Personally, I feel that these are the two areas where the greatest amount of intentional selective self-presentation was used, and I think that these areas were the ones that would produce the strongest impression because of how different and unique they were.
Overall, great job! I look forward to reading more of your posts!
Elliot,
Great post! You utilized a wide range of theories to explain your friend’s acts of deception and lack thereof. I agree that Facebook’s new searchable feature is going to affect many users’ profiles. Now that I know my profile can be made public, I am going to be more careful about the information (and photos) that I display. I am especially interested in the way you tied Hyperpersonal Theory into your post. Often I am puzzled by some users’ resistance to filling out all of the fields on their profiles, but I agree that “less is more” in the case you explained. A little bit of mystery can be helpful in CMC.
Hi,
My test subject also didn’t put down some things they could have in the information section. I’m not sure if that itself falls under Self Presentation which deception techniques involve lying frequently and subtly. However, by untagging all pictures that make themselves look bad they are clearly manipulating information to make themselves appear more attractive which does fit in the Self Presentation theory. I feel that by leaving information out you will not having differing opinions with others and have an easier time having common ground as we learned in lecture this week. The nature of the applications was a good thing to look into as they are all very different and reveal different things about a person. You could probably even elaborate on them by considering by even having a certain application can you make base assumptions about a person. Your post was well done and you analyzed some great points, try to go into more detail on theory next time, but all in all great job.
Elliot,
I too was impressed by your post. You successfully demonstrated why your friend's profile supported both the hyperpersonal model and the self presentation model. Your inclusion of talk about de-tagged photos was a good example to support your claims.
The addition of applications that seemed to occur overnight has become, to me, an annoying aspect of Facebook. Perhaps it is because the frivolous nature of the website is diminishing. It is now a place where identities are formed and preserved. My declaring which presidential candidate you support, what music you're currently listening to and where you plan to travel next, it has become a snapshot (whether true or false) of each person's life.
Elliot,
I agree with what you said about how the inception of all these new "applications" will provide additional information about oneself to the public that would make it even more difficult to deceive someone over the internet and would limit or even decrease the amount of deception on these social networks.
Also, I found it interesting when you said, “Both of these cases were not so much intentional deception as leaving out information to limit the image presented.” I concur with Chris that by purposely leaving out information or untagging pictures of oneself is, indeed, an intentional form of deception, based upon the Self Presentation theory. It's interesting how you thought it wasn't and how we tend to think of deception in degrees. I believe that for me, personally, I often put more time and thought into the things that I do not want disclosed than the actual information I display to the public (e.g., much of my assessment signals).
Overal, great post!
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