As I sit watching Monday Night Football with my buddy, I slyly examine her Facebook profile without her knowledge with the intent of analyzing her through the Brunswikian Lens Model. The hardest aspect of her profile to pick out is obviously her self-directed identity claims, as Facebook’s socially-oriented nature discourages self-intended identity expressions. I feel the closest that my friend comes in this aspect is her selection of photographs, which she can edit in order to shape not only her image in the eyes of other, but also herself. Facebook can also serve, in many cases, as the universal “What the hell did I do last night” reminder, reinforcing one’s own identity.
One of the most obvious other-directed identity claims that I feel we don’t realize is one is the birthday date so prominently displayed on profiles. In addition to this, the current and upcoming birthdays are displayed on our home pages (a function that existed before News Feed, no less), which results in many people posting birthday wishes on our walls even if they don’t really know us well enough to do so in person. My friend’s birthday is August 7th, and even if I forget that, Facebook will remind me without my asking. In this way, the birthday line is an other-directed identity claim, often going beyond a simple claim to in-your-face informational barrage. Her News Feed serves, clearly, as her interior behavioral residue, and anytime she updates or adds photos or attends an event, I am forced to see that it happened just by logging in. Finally, when analyzing her exterior behavioral residue, what jumps out at me, is her activities and interests, as one would expect. But added to that is her distinct “lack” of friends (compared to everyone else) which exemplifies her lack of involvement, not in the world, but in Facebook itself. As she herself puts it, “I don’t ‘friend’ people, they ‘friend’ me.” This deficiency in the friend count is in its own way indicative of my friend’s activity level on the site itself, an exterior behavioral residue.
Taking this information and applying it to the Five Factor model, I find myself rating her low on openness and extraversion, and average on agreeableness, conscientiousness and neuroticism. I would attribute these ratings to the somewhat sparse information presented on my friend’s Facebook page, because I know for a fact that in person she is pleasant, very outgoing, fun, self-aware, and not in the least bit neurotic. So it seems Facebook is not the end-all and be-all of personality presentation, as this online medium lacks when compared with FtF interactions and evaluations.
http://comm245red.blogspot.com/2007/10/assignment-72-dont-judge-girl-by-her.html
http://comm245red.blogspot.com/2007/10/72-personal-webpage.html
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
You make an interesting point about how birthdays were essentially the beginnings of the newsfeed. I also noticed that some people use the other-directed identity claim by controlling other’s view on their age. Some people intentionally don’t put their birth year because they don’t want to be regarded as old. Do you think that since your friend doesn’t use facebook often, she doesn’t know how to utilize its mechanisms? For example, maybe she is actually more conscientious than you perceive her to be, but doesn’t know how to utilize the mechanisms in facebook, like privating pictures or choosing not to display updates.
Spencer, your point about pictures acting as self-directed identity claims is interesting because in class we discussed how they are a perfect example of exterior behavior residue. You’re completely right, though, that sometimes the pictures people put up or the way they edit and alter them can be for their own benefit. The only thing I don’t understand is how the lack of friends is external behavior residue. You specifically said that it was a result of “her lack of involvement, not in the world, but in Facebook itself.” Doesn’t that make it interior behavior residue? Other than that I think you make some good points and your post was enjoyable. I like how you took it a step further and commented on CMC vs. FtF based on your findings for this assignment.
I think you made interesting assessments about your friend’s Facebook profile in regards to the Brunswikian lens model. However, I am a little unsure of your example for exterior behavioral residue. You stated that your friend’s lack of friends on Facebook “exemplifies her lack of involvement, not in the world, but in Facebook itself.” I think you may have just confused the definition for exterior behavioral residue. The traces of one’s behavior on Facebook that are left in the environment would be an example of interior behavioral residue. Your example of the Newsfeed is a perfect illustration of this. Exterior behavioral residue would be the activities you do outside of Facebook. Therefore, when you looked at your friend’s low Facebook friend count as an indicator of her activity level on the site, I think that actually better describes interior behavioral residue. Besides that, I think you did a good job on your post. I especially liked your analysis of the birthday displays on Facebook.
Post a Comment