We are some of the first people to really have never known college before social networking sites such as Facebook. In a way, we are defining how it is used to meet new people, exchange information, and in some cases, exchange false information. Just like the dating websites discussed in class, Facebook users are often “advertising” themselves to the other users. Some people may try to appear more popular to their friends or more responsible for potential employers. The only real assessment signal is your college network which must be verified with an e-mail address. Everything else in your profile is unverified, essentially making the rest of your profile conventional signals.
There are some elements of a Facebook profile such as gender that would be an assessment signal in face to face interactions, but could conceivably be lied about online. Possibly more important than this, is what can be left out of your profile. Privacy settings allow users to restrict what information, pictures, and profile elements appear to their friends and networks. One would assume that lying on Facebook would generally be similar to the findings of Catalina's “Deception in Online Dating” study. It is likely that you will meet and interact with the people who view your profile in a richer medium at some point, and blatant lying would be easily detectable. Instead, subtle lying is more effective, as well as selectively choosing information and media that paint you in the best light possible.
For my profile analysis I chose one of my close friends, since I knew I could verify almost all of the claims she makes on her profile. For activities and interests she rated herself a four because both lists were incomplete. For books, movies, TV shows, and music she gave herself a three in all categories. Looking at her profile, she realized that many of the things she had listed were outdated and missing others. For quotes and about me, she gave herself fours, as both sections reflected experiences from her time at college more than at home. For work information she gave herself a three because her job title was not accurate. Finally, she gave herself a two for groups since she had 94 listed, many of which she forgot she had ever joined.
Some profile elements such as political views have limited options, so it is possible for someone's profile to be incomplete without them intending it to be so. In my friend's example, the outdated nature of many profile elements were the biggest contributing factor in the “deceptive” elements of her profile. This is not uncommon, as many people do not regularly review and update what they have on their profile. From my personal knowledge of my friend I found her responses to be true. As expected, her profile was geared toward things that would help her to meet new people. This leans more towards the impression management tactic of selective self-presentation than true deception as we normally think of it.
http://comm245yellow.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment-four-my-wikipedia-trip-to.html
http://comm245yellow.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment-4-option-2-xbook.html
2 comments:
Michael,
Hmmm...after reading this post, I began to think about selective self-presentation in a new light. Overall, your subject ranked herself low in the various categories. Aside from the outdatedness, do you think there are any reasons why she would do this?
In the case of information on a profile that one may have forgotten about, it is very true that the person was attempting to "fit in with a number of crowds" and trying to present an ideal self. The issue is, however, this person may not even know what their ideal self is. This may be why she ranked herself low on those categories. It is also a possibility that the person may have changed over the course of time and did not have the motivation to escape the other groups she agreed to be part of.
Interesting...
~Saidu
This post made me think about a few interesting issues in using facebook. I wasn't surprised when you said that your friend had 94 groups listed. It would seem that some people put more effort than others into maintaining their facebook profile. Some people join only a few select groups, but most people i know are lazy and accept every group invitation they receive. Its interesting how your friend found her profile to be inaccurate because of how old the information was. It would be informative to see a person's facebook profile from several different dates ranging from when they first made the profile to their most recent update. Id be interested to see how much a person has changed over time and whether their profile has become a more accurate representation of the person or if it has become more deceptive.
Eric
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