When my friend’s facebook profile first popped up on my computer screen for this assignment I thought, “How can she possibly lie about anything if that’s her default picture?” Her picture isn’t one of those glamour shots, but instead is of her with a weird face yelling about something: classic. Some of the assessment signals are her network, email address, and basic contact information. Also, she can’t hide what she looks like based on the pictures that have been tagged. The conventional signals are basically everything else on facebook. Anything else that is there has been chosen specifically to represent what she wants others to see.
When interviewing my friend about the accuracy of her profile, I initially thought everything would be completely true, based on my tendency to be in line with the truth bias and my initial reaction to her picture. However, as I interviewed her I began to realize there was no way to convey the whole truth on facebook and since she hadn’t updated her profile in a while, it led much of the content to be inaccurate or in need of an update. When rating the accuracy, she gave her contact information a 4, her pictures a 4, groups a 5, interests and personal information a 3 and anything else a 4. He contact information contained a website that she is only slightly affiliated with and her address and telephone number were missing. In regards to her pictures, she thinks that she isn’t photogenic and hates posing for pictures, leading to many awkward ones that don’t clearly display what she looks like in person. She thinks that she is very selective in groups and only joins those she is truly interested in, but this may also be a result of social associations, in which she only wants to be in the groups that are socially appropriate. The interests and personal information have not been changed in a long time, leading to unlisted favorite movies, tv shows, and music. Also, her friend added a quote, which she just kept there because she was too lazy to change it. She thinks everything else is relatively accurate and didn’t intentionally change anything to make herself seem different than she really is.
When looking at my friend’s profile it seems that there are some instances of selective self-presentation. The conventional signals are easily manipulated in order to show those things she thinks others want to know about her. Although she states that she likes basketball and the food network, she failed to list her intense love for burping loudly. Facebook is a recordable media leading to an increased ability to detect lies if listed so there is nothing on her profile that is an obvious lie. Instead, she has just used attitude expressions to show the public the certain attributes she believes she possesses and thinks others should know about.
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Nice job, Rachel. We seemed to go about our Facebook research in much the same way. When it came time for me to interview my friend on the accuracy of her profile, I realized afterwards that although the information a person decides to make public on their Facebook profile may be accurate, the profile as a whole may not be accurate. In terms of one’s Favorite Music, or Movies, or Groups, Facebook participants will post information that is, at worst, neutral on the attractiveness spectrum. Most people only display information that would be considered favorable or attractive, because no one wants to Selectively Self Present unattractive qualities on Facebook for the whole world to see. At least your friend went with a relatively accurate default photo. Nothing bothers me more than the completely bogus, black-and-white, cropped within an inch of its life default.
I think it's really great you touched on some of the non-conventional topics associated with online impression formation. The main example being those people who purposely forgo having a attractive picture. It's definitely a phenomenon I don't really understand but see regularly, and it has a really interesting counter-culture psychological element to it.
Another issue that we didn't discuss in class and have relatively little way to detect or measure is deception by exclusion. Catalina's model tends to focus on information that we present that is untrue or perhaps just subtly inaccurate. However, it's difficult to account for someone leaving truthful information out of their profile (i.e. one's love for burping loudly).
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