Looking through the different Facebook profiles of my "friends," I noticed there are a lot of liars out there. Firstly, let me point out "friends" is in quotes because to be completely honest, some of the people I'm so called friends with I've never met and have no idea who they are. Why you would friend complete strangers is beyond me, but many a stranger has friended me. Anyway, getting back to the assignment, while I was looking through this I noticed that many of my friends’ profiles (and my profile too, for that matter) are complete lies. From my interpretation of it, they are not lies in the way one would lie on a dating service profile, but instead they are jokes making fun of either other people, social situations, or facebook itself. These are not lies intended to make themselves appear in a positive light or improve their image, but at the same time are not accurate descriptions of themselves. If a person did not know the individual whose profile they were looking at, they would not be able to pick up on the sarcasm associated with each "about me" feature and might believe that some of my friends have incestuous or homicidal tendencies.
Since most of the signals on facebook are conventional signals (favorite books, movies, music, tv shows), and it's a very lean asynchroneous form of communication, the social distance theory would say that this is an excellent medium for indentity deception. Even the simple statisticity assesment signals are self reported and can easily be altered, so there is no guarantee any information is completely accurate. Based on my impression of how often people posted an inaccurate relationship status or sarcastic interests or choices in movies, I would say this is true.
I chose the friend whose profile I would use at random, deciding beforehand that I would choose the top right person that appeared under my "friends at Cornell" window. Coincidently, the profile I chose to study appears to be extremely accurate. She keeps her conventional signals as minimal as possible, only listing movies, music, books, quotes, and about me. She rated everything a 5 as completely accurate, and after looking at her profile I have to agree. Her picture was her, she didn’t put on a fake relationship status, and she only listed movies and books she knew she loved. Some would say she had a very minimalist profile, with only 2-3 listings in each signal, and only one quote, and a single, brief sentence for an about me. She manages to keep an air of mystery and cool in her profile by having minimal information in it, and doesn’t lie at all, though I know for a fact she is leaving out information. She was very selective in the information she put out there and this leads to a positive self representation, though I have to agree with colleen about lies of omission. Ultimately, you decide what you want people to know about you via facebook, and although people may not be able to completely know the person who’s profile they’re looking at, the information you choose to disclose and the way you disclose it can give insight into you interests and personality.
2 comments:
Carlos, I agree that it is very common for jokes and sarcasm to appear on Facebook profiles. A few weeks ago, when I accidentally left my Facebook profile open on my friend’s computer he added “triple A batteries (so cute)” to my interests. This trend opens the question of what are lying and deception. Do theories such as Media Richness and Social Distance take into account inaccuracies that are not meant as lies? I don’t think that anyone will believe that “stop signs” are an interest of mine, but that is still not accurate. Is this a lie? Perhaps jokes like this are something completely separate that need to be explored by these theories. We do not worry about getting caught or being recorded with this type of inaccuracy, as we do with deliberate, purposeful lies. So perhaps a different set of observations must be made and the theories we have learned need to be expanded.
Very nice post. You touched on a topic relating to Facebook and online deception that interests me, which is the distinction between lying and being selective with one’s information. Of course, you discuss jokes and obvious lies that have no goal to make the user “appear in a positive light or improve [his or her] image”—but since it is difficult to openly lie on Facebook (putting up a false or photoshopped image can only go so far when you meet your Facebook friends in real life, what methods do users utilize to improve their appearances. Profile minimalism and selectivity seems to be the method of choice since those incoming-freshman laundry lists just aren’t cool anymore—being selective with interests and allowing only a few photos of yourself to be seen tend to create that “air of mystery” without typical deception. Outright lying to make yourself seem better is just too trite and obvious to get away with it on Facebook.
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