Facebook is an interesting entity. As a venue for communication, it lies somewhere between instant messaging and emailing in terms of features. People can write messages, leave wall posts, and “poke” each other. However, it also serves as a source of personal information, blogs, and statuses, similar to a dating profile or personal weblog. In my little experiment with “John’s” facebook profile, I found there are significantly more assessment signals than in other CMC options. For example, facebook requires a real email address to register, so imposters can’t fake schools. In addition, with the way people make friends and join social networks, fakes would be quickly spotted if they lied about age, location, contact and work information. Based on this high cost to alter information, I categorize all of the above as assessment signals. I consider appearance, relationship status, activities/interests, and personally characteristics as conventional signals. These features are easy to change with little consequence and easy to do so on facebook. In John’s case, his profile picture was an attractive shot with the right lighting/clothing/background, cute girl on arm included. His picture albums (84 actually) included plenty of attractive women, nights out, alcohol, cars, gifts for his girlfriend(s), and vacations. This leads me in to the accuracy of this portrayed lifestyle. (1 least accurate, 5 most accurate)
ASL: self reported 5, cross verified 5
Contact information: self reported 5, cross verified 5
Background information (hometown, school): self reported 5, cross verified 5
Work information: self reported 4, cross verified 3 Day trader/Money maker
Activities: self reported 3, cross verified 1.5 to live life, being accused of having too much fun, laughing at the wrong times, making ridiculous amounts of money
Interests: self reported 3, cross verified 1 anything and everything, after jumping out of spaceships, nothing interest excites me anymore
Favorites: self reported 1, cross verified 1 listed only one movie and one book
About me: self reported 3.5, cross verified 1 story of drunken driving with a hot girl in the passenger side
Average rating: self reported 3.69, cross verified 2.81
I rated John as a much bigger liar than he thought. I felt obnoxious answers that don’t really fit the question category should be counted as lies. If you don’t tell what you are actually interested in or do or like, then you are presenting a false self by withholding information. John, on the other hand, seemed to feel like those responses were sufficient because they were true, and those categories did not interest him enough to list out actual answers. However, he has not taken a course on selective self-presentation and digital deception, making me the authority of the group. I felt like it was easy to deceive in facebook based on the social distance theory because of the parallel features to dating profiles. It is editable, so you can appear as attractive as you want, (un)tagging pictures, posting photos, befriend desirable friends, or present “cool” information. It is asynchronous and semi-recordless so you can choose what updates your friends will see in their minifeeds, if at all. It is a semi-rich medium over which you have much control and can limit the amount of explanation/communication to friends.
The deception I saw on John’s profile was pretty obvious. We all know he is not really a money maker for a living. There were no outrageous lies (like I’m a 50 year old married firefighter). This seems to be on account of the recordability and anticipation for future meetings. In terms of subtleness in order to appear honest, I felt like the physical appearance was the biggest lie. John was subtle in that he did not state “I’m an attractive man you should date.” However, his profile was clearly targeted towards women who might think so with “attractive” pictures of himself out having fun. He also deceived frequency by repeatedly mentions of wealth/fun.
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1 comment:
John sounds like one cool dude. I found your post very interesting that your friend would lie to that extent. I’m not a huge facebook user but most people’s profiles are at least generally accurate. It’s entertaining to see to what extent people will go to alter the perception of their identity. I think your definition of conventional signals depends how well one knows john. If they know him well, items such as appearance or relationship status could easily be assessment signals. It’s kind of hard to trick your girlfriend on facebook by saying your single when clearly she knows better. John is really a perfect example of the hyperpersonal model. He is trying to portray a very specific image of himself by selectively giving out data (or making it up). Whether or not it works is another matter. However, I wouldn't say his physical appearance is necessarily a lie, he’s just trying to alter it to make himself look "cooler".
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