As an avid Facebook.com user, I am very interested in the styles people use to create their profile and how these different styles affect the perception of that person. A Facebook profile consists of contact information, basic personal information like age, sex, location etc., and a variety of fields regarding personal preferences. This includes favorite activities, interests, music, television, movies, books, and quotes. In addition, profiles contain information added by other people, such as wall posts and pictures.
Most of the categories on a profile are conventional signals because they are low cost and can easily be changed. Anyone can lie about their taste in music or favorite television show. However, the basic personal information, like e-mail address, name, and age are harder to falsify and thus should be considered assessment signals. Also, although pictures can be untagged, generally photos are costly displays because they are directly related to the organism’s (the profile owner’s) characteristic. If a person with a Facebook profile interacts with the same people online as they do in real life, it is harder for them to change their name, age, and especially sex. Because Facebook is a tool mostly used for solidifying already existing friendships, it is rare that someone falsifies an entire profile to create an entirely new identity. However, as exceptions exist to theories, this exception would make all of Facebook’s signals conventional.
Following Catalina’s study, I asked my friend to analyze her own profile on the scale of 1 to 5. Elements that were given a 5 are interests, movies, and wall posts. These elements show a completely accurate representation of my friend. Elements given a score of 4 are music, books, and pictures. Although this may indicate some sort of deception, my friend explained that they are slightly inaccurate because they are out of date. Lastly, she gave a 3 to activities and favorite television shows. These categories listed things that were extremely out of date or irrelevant, although at one point in her life they were valid.
Social distance theory says that because lying is an uncomfortable action that lends itself to awkward nonverbal and verbal cues, we will use the leanest media to lie. Although Facebook is a relatively lean media because it is distributed and asynchronous, I found my friend did not try to lie in her profile. She was generally accurate about her assessment of her profile, and her information was merely out of date, not deceptive. If any deception had taken place, it would have been identity-based because her identity would have been manipulated and her profile would have presented a false display.
http://comm245yellow.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment-4-lying-to-friend.html
http://comm245yellow.blogspot.com/2007/09/4-facebook-deception.html
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2 comments:
Caryn,
I think it is difficult to pinpoint the trend of lying on facebook because of the factors you mentioned. Many people do not bother to update their profile regularly. The out of date information should not be construed as lying because some people simply do not care enough to adjust their facebook as their activities and interests change. Also, it is important to take into account the new trend of limiting the information available on a facebook profile. As employers are gaining access to these profiles, more people are eliminating paragraphs of information that may have painted a more accurate picture of themselves, but reveal some embarrassing or unflattering information. For example, many Cornell seniors are editing their facebook profiles so that they are more appealing to adults who may be contemplating offering them a job. In doing so, they may omit certain information, but I do not think this should be classified as deception since they are simply making changes to cater to a more professional audience. Everyone has a different prupose for using facebook and I think this should be considered when determining the degree of deception on an individual user’s profile.
-Lindsay
Hi Caryn,
First off, I really liked your post a lot. I also found a lot of the same things that you did with my own mini Facebook deceit experiment. I found it was interesting that the things that your friend found to be the least accurate were mostly because they were out of date or irrelevant, yet at one point in their life were true. I had the same experience in my study (my friend even went back after we had finished and edited her information). I really liked how you dismissed the Social Distance Theory as not really pertaining to this experiment. Perhaps Media Richness Theory could do a better job explaining these phenomena? I ask the question because maybe people dismiss the Facebook categories “favorite TV, books, movies, etc.” as superficial and less equivocal, and therefore choose Facebook as a lean media to convey these ideas. Again, nice post I really enjoyed it.
~Ben
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