Since I’m a terrible liar, and I value honesty, I chose Option 2 for this week’s blog assignment. I analyzed profiles of close friends, people I have never met, and everybody in between. This gave me a wide range of perspectives from which to view deception on Facebook.
As profiles are not a physical part of the people they represents, it was hard to classify some elements as Assessment Signals. Thus, aspects that are simply difficult to change were categorized as Assessment Signals. Inclusion in university-affiliated networks is very difficult to fake because a university email address is required. Elements of a profile – Friends and Relationship Status - that need confirmation from others also fall under Assessment signals. Since a user cannot control what other users say and do, wall posts share some of the Assessment Signal characteristics. While wall posts can be deleted, you cannot choose what people say on them. Lastly, which random sample of Mutual Friends and friends from the user’s network appears is controlled completely by Facebook.
I defined Conventional Signals as those that are easily changed or faked. Important elements, such as name and profile picture, are completely controlled by the user, and can easily be used in deception. Just as on online dating profiles, Facebook users can purposely use their personal information to deceive those looking at their profile. Gender, interests, activities, education, etc. can all be faked. These sections are easy to alter and, with no way to check validity, could conceivably be entirely false. The same is true for groups joined, photos added, and special applications used.
When I asked a friend to go review the truth in her Facebook profile, she reported mostly 5’s on a scale of 1 (completely inaccurate) to 5 (completely accurate). After discussing her profile with her, I reviewed it and it is 100% accurate to my knowledge.
The level of accuracy on my friend’s Facebook profile is in line with the Media Richness Theory’s prediction of lying. Since social pressures like the physical presence and synchronous nature of FtF communication are missing in less rich media, such as email and networking site profiles, Media Richness Theory predicts less lying in lean media. My friend’s completely accurate and honest Facebook profile supports this prediction. Likewise, her profile goes against the Social Distance Theory that predicts more lying in lean media, where there is more of a distance between communicators. While lying is easier on Facebook, it is not as necessary since you are not trying to impress any one particular person, viewing people’s real time responses to your profile, or answering questions in a live conversation. Thus, Media Richness is more relevant to Facebook.
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4 comments:
Dan,
I thought your post was quite insightful and brought a few questions to my mind. Do you really think your friends profile was completely accurate? Maybe she didn’t deliberately lie, but were some of her less brag-worthy interests left out? I think facebook is definitely a place where we are all trying to impress at least one person. We don’t want to look like stupid slobs; I think it’s safe to say we all try to look good and interesting in our profiles. Because of that, I feel that there definitely is deception in facebook profiles, no matter the person. For example, leaving out a favorite book, because it’s on a 5th grade reading level is not quite lying, but I think it definitely qualifies as digital deception. In accordance with the Media Richness Theory, I think we definitely lie more in FtF interactions and media more rich in cues, but I don’t think lying completely disappears when we enter leaner medias.
http://comm245red.blogspot.com/2007/09/4-option-1-canada-or-ireland.html
http://comm245red.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment-4-facebook-facade.html
Hi Dan,
I was interested by your post because I came up with similiar results in the facebook profile I analyzed. First of all, I agree with your definitions of assessment versus conventional signals. Although many aspects of one's profile are easily manipulated, there are certain details that cannot be feigned. I think you did a great job of establishing the differences between the two.
I found similar results when looking at the profile of a friend of mine. At first I was surprised, but giving it more thought, I believe it is relatively easy to detect liars on Facebook. Assuming that you do not friend people whom ouy have never really met, most Facebook users can assume that people they interact with in real life have access to their profiles. With this in mind, I believe that falsifying one's profile is a risky move.
As for the Media Richness Theory, I found that the Feature Based Approach is more relevant. Although Facebook isusually not used for synchronous communication, it falls under the two other categories of recordable and distributable. I feel as though this may be a motivator as well to why people tend to be more honest in their profiles.
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