My friend is a digital deceiver. The items she chooses to list in the conventional portions of her Facebook profile (Interests, Favorite Music, Favorite TV Shows, Favorite Books, and Favorite Quotes) are deceptive of who she really is. Although when interviewed she claimed that all of the conventional signals she has listed are completely accurate (she gave them all 5’s), she did go on to mention that she left a few things out (making the true accuracy assessment more like 3’s and 4s).
She told me what she has listed as her Interests are completely accurate, but that as an English major, she also loves to read obscure books, but she won’t list that in her profile, because she wants to seem as though she’s very outgoing, and doesn’t like to be alone reading. She’s selecting her self-presentation. So my friend didn’t seem lame she selectively presented her favorite music, TV shows, books and quotes, in her Facebook profile. While the conventional signals she has listed in her profile are accurate (she definitely didn’t lie), they are not completely accurate. She has selectively left out some of her interests that she is embarrassed to admit to her online community of friends that she enjoys.
As far as her Assessment signals go, she was not a deceiver. She was truthful. The aspects of her true real-life identity, like her name, birthday, hometown, e-mail, screen name, majors, political views and university are all the truth. All of these signals, except her relationship status are honest. Her status says she’s married to another girl, which all of her friends should know is not true. This one aspect is also an act of deception. She doesn’t like to admit openly that she’s single, so to cover it up, she has made a joke and married her best girlfriend on facebook. This lie is another, less revealing way to selectively present oneself as single.
My friend has also chosen to selectively self-present herself through her pictures. Although the hundred some-odd pictures that are on her Facebook profile appear to be of her, she has untagged at least hundreds of other images of herself. The lack of certain information, and untagged pictures is all so she can create her ideal self on her Facebook profile. As I have mentioned, my friend only lied once, about her relationship status, which wasn’t so much a lie as a joke. So, her frequency is rather low (on a scale of 1 to 5 I’d say it was a 1). But, her magnitude pertaining to how much she has deceived people is relatively high (on a scale of 1 to 5 I’d say it was a 3). Overall, my friend selectively self-represented herself to create a desired impression that people in the online world would get of her.
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2 comments:
Interesting post. It sounds like your friend didn't really lie about anything. Instead, she withheld some information in order to create a deceptive image of herself. Your experience sounds like an example of the hyperpersonal model in action. In addition to the evident selective self-presentation your friend utilizes, she also seems to be depending on the over-attribution based on her relationship status and the reallocation of cognitive resources to interpret this status. I guess she really knows how to work the theory to her advantage. ;]
Justine, I think you did a good job of describing the different aspects of your friends facebook profile such TV Shows, Books, etc. and how she left out a few things about herself. I think your analysis aligns with self presentation, which is commonly used on facebook. It was a good idea to choose a friend that you know a lot about for this assignment. If you simply chose an acquaintance, you might not know things like the fact she reads obscure books or her interests. You experience definitely aligns with the hyperpersonal model especially since your friend rated herself 3 or 4 on certain parts of her profile, admitting to selective self presentation.
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