For this fourth assignment, I chose to do option 2. I'm not too good at lying, however, I enjoy confronting people with cold hard facts and making it impossible for them to talk their way out of a lie. The subject, who will be called Jack, had their entire facebook sifted through and examined right down to that embarassing naked baby photo, whom their friend (ME!) had posted because of a lost bet. As a side note, most of you would be like "Baby pictures are cute!", but I'm here to tell you, no kid is cute when they are rocking the mullet with blonde hair. Amazingly enough, my friend was all for this test, claiming he had nothing to hide. However, it turns out not everything on his profile was the truth. His facebook profile score goes as such!
Contact Information: 3
Photos: 5
General(interests, activities, music,books, etc): 3
About Me: 3
Applications that matched his personality: 4
Groups: 5
Contact information, namely an e-mail address is an assessment signal. It can be a dead giveaway related directly to the person. The only example I can remember going over in class is a school e-mail address. However, his e-mail address came from yahoo. Can yahoo honestly be a dead giveaway about a person's characteristics? Although we are not presented with as much cues as we would have been with a school e-mail, yahoo addresses still give a couple of cues.
The photographs are also assessment signals and there really is no need in explaining that.
The other items on a facebook profile can go either way I think. They could be assessment signals, if they are true. But if they are false then they are an even more low cost display of a person's characteristics, although one cue you have attained would be the fact that they were a liar.
I would say the grades he gave himself on each category were really accurate. For example, in his contact info he gave his correct mobile phone number, however, his e-mail address was one that he hasn't checked in years. His interests and music were up to par, however, some of the books that were on his list he either doesn't remember, or didn't even enjoy. He informed me he put them up there to make himself appear well-rounded.
I believe what occurred during this test is directly related to Media Richness Theory. Facebook would not be considered a very rich medium like telephone or FTF. Instead facebook is CMC so his frequency and magnitude of lies were conveniently proportioned to the medium in which he told them. For example, if he would have blatantly lied about his appearance, this lie can be brought into the open by simply clicking on his pictures.
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3 comments:
I thought your post was interesting and well done. I also did the second choice on my assignment but came to slightly different conclusions than you. For my person, although all of the facts were on the page and were true, the deception came through in selectively arranging the data on the profile page. While his appearance can be verified by clicking through his pictures, do his pictures give an entire story of his personality or a very selective presentation? I found that my subject consistently looked good in her photos even though she is not very photogenic in real life. I also found it was funny that many pictures of people show them doing absolutely absurd things in party settings but for some people there is no trace of underage drinking in their pictures. Why do you think he chose to augment his portrayal of himself with books and not with either movies, music or interests?
It had never occurred to me that people might lie about something like their favorite books. That must be awkward for him when someone starts a conversation with him about that particular book because they saw that he liked it on Facebook. I guess that the only reason I am surprised about this is my truth bias. The asynchronous nature of Facebook profiles probably make it easier for him to lie about something like that too. If he were telling someone his favorite books in a synchronous medium, he would most likely have a much harder time lying because he might have to discuss and/or justify his choice to his conversation partner.
It was interesting that your friend was deceptive about both conventional and assessment signals on his profile. Actually, maybe in his case, email address shouldn’t count as an assessment signal. Anyone can have a yahoo account, so it isn’t a costly display of a certain characteristic. Also, I think the personal information he provided sounded like it should be classified under conventional signals. Information like activities and favorite music is extremely easy to lie about and is generally only conventionally associated with specific characteristics.
I found your post interesting because for one, I chose the first option. Also because I feel as if the reason information could often times be different on CMC based media is because it is often times not updated as quickly. I know for myself I am constantly getting in trouble by my friends and girlfriend because my information is not accurate. They are all like why does your facebook or myspace say this? what are you trying to hide? I feel that for many people such as myself that just don't care if information on there is so accurate that it often times of low priority to us.
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