One of the most popular modern time-wasting methods for college students, other than Facebook of course, is AIM away message and profile checking. I decided to analyze a friend's profile through the Brunswikian Lens Model in order to classify the way that he presented himself.
The first thing in my friend's profile is his address at school. This classifies as an other-directed identity claim because not only does it tell people what school he attends but also where to send him mail. It could also be considered an exterior behavioral residue because my friend's school address reflects an offline aspect of his life. Next, he has the lyrics to a popular song. I personally don't know the exact meaning of the song, but I suspect that based on the lyrics they are an inside joke with some of his friends from high school. This would be a self directed identity claim because it says something about his experiences, but it isn't intended for people like myself who are unfamiliar with the joke. The song lyrics are light-hearted and humorous, which suggests that my friend is an agreeable person, even without knowing exactly why he included them in his profile.
My friend’s profile also includes a list of “Things I Like:” which is an other directed identity claim. This list would lead the casual observer to view my friend as conscientious, but also fairly neurotic. This list is an other directed identity claim because it tells others something about my friend’s personality traits. My friend also copied an IM conversation between himself and another one of our friends into his profile. This is an example of interior behavioral residue because it is a conversation generated inside the medium of instant messenger and the log of the conversation has been copied over to illustrate something funny one of our friends once said. The conversation from my friends profile is an Animal House style quote about college, and might lead the casual observer of his profile to; combined with his school address, stereotype him as a wild partying college student.
Much like Facebook, people use their AIM profile for everything from inside jokes to listing information about them that hints at their offline personality. The difference with AIM is that most people who are looking at your profile already know you, so inside jokes may be more appropriate in your AIM profile than on Facebook. This lends itself to more self directed identity claims than Facebook which lends itself to more other directed identity claims.
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http://comm245yellow.blogspot.com/2007/10/assignment-1-option-1-brotherhood.html
1 comment:
Michael,
Great post! I agree with you that AIM would be a more suitable interface than facebook to share one’s self-directed identity claims that only people who know you well would understand. In addition, I find that personal online blogs are also a good source to share inside jokes because typically only your close friends will know your blog. I thought you did a clear assessment of your friend’s AIM profile using the Brunswikian Lens Model. However, I have one question that I would like to ask about your post: What would your impression be of someone who does not have anything in their AIM profile? Most of the times only a few of my friends have anything substantial in their profile, and a lot of times they do not have anything, so I often assume that they do not care much about their profiles.
Katherine
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