Hi,
Like most other college students I have a facebook profile that I use to communicate and keep in touch with friends. Because of this association I chose to do the second option and evaluate a classmate’s profile. The classmate who I will refer to as RR is a friend of mine so I know the kind of things he likes and is interested in doing. Facebook is set up in the general way for people to deliver information about themselves. You can put down your name however you’d like, your birthday, your hometown, current residence, relationship status, your sexual orientation, political affiliation, current status, interest and activities, favorite movies and music, and favorite quotes. You also have the ability to omit as many of these things as you’d like giving you the chance to get rid of non positive information.
In viewing RR’s profile the first thing that is noticeable is the exclusion of several pieces of information including, sexual orientation, relationship status, hometown and political affiliation. I feel that facebook is a very self presentational kind of website were you do everything in your power to fulfill the goals of making yourself appear attractive or “cool” and to appear honest about your claims. By omitting things RR could avoid displeasing someone with a different view point right off the back. Most attributes on a profile including the ones he chose not to show are conventional signals that can be easily changed and lied about.
Next I asked them to rate their information about interest and activities in which they gave everything a 4 or 5 rating. One noticeable feature was he listed very few things in each category once again, 1-3 items. Ofcourse this is not lying, but this is manipulation of data transmitted in a way. Social distance theory would predict that my friend would be able to easily lie in comfort in the lean medium that is facebook, but I feel that like my friend most people tell the truth for the most part with small subtle lies that are present in Self presentation.
1 comment:
Chris,
I agree with a lot of what you said in your post. I, too, believe that facebook is extremely self-presentational in all aspects; people have full control over what information they want to disclose. I also agree with your belief that people often tend to make a lot more subtle and seemless lies than very blatant ones.
In addition, similar to your friend's Facebook profile, I, too, do not put a plethora of personal information on my profile because I would rather have that person discover who I am through getting to know me, rather than have him read it off a computer screen. So, I tend to put up just the main assessment signals about myself that I think people would be able to get right off the back if they were to meet me in person, but a lot of the other information, I would rather have them ask me for it.
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