Facebook allows users to modify their identity; they have control over the information they share with other users. As we discussed in class, we can either present our actual selves or ideal selves by monitoring what we divulge in parts of our profiles. javascript:void(0)
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The Facebook Profile includes standard information such as your name, school, date of birth, hometown, sex, contact information, and work information. These are assessment signals, which are costly displays that are directly related to one’s characteristics. These signals are links to a person’s real world identity. The other parts of the profile are conventional signals, which are an easy target for identity manipulation. These categories are activities, interests, favorite TV shows, favorite quotes, political views, about me, groups, profile picture and pictures. One can easily change these areas and make the information reflect the person they want to be or would like others to see them as.
I interviewed one of my roommates to see how accurate she felt her facebook profile reflected her identity. I found that for the most part, the assessment signals were all given “5’s” – considered to be completely accurate. Overall, the conventional signals were also rated as being completely accurate. At times she would laugh and make comments such as “forgot to take that off” or “need to update that” or “not interested in that anymore,” and there were a few ones, twos, threes, and fours among her interests, favorite TV shows, and groups. But in general, there were predominantly fives.
Looking over her answers and thinking about her as a person, I agreed with her assessment of the accuracy of her profile. She was truthful about where she veered from the truth, but for the most part it was a result of not recently updating her profile. Perhaps she purposefully did not update the profile because she felt that those TV shows or interests were part of her “ideal self”, but because it was a few random items, I do not think that was the case. Therefore, I think that with regards to the overall accuracy of her profile, this case supports the Hyperpersonal Model.
The Hyperpersonal Model has five main components – over-attribution processes, developmental aspect, selective self-presentation, reallocation of cognitive resources, and behavioral confirmation. In terms of over-attribution processes, the less data about someone leads to over-attribution/exaggerated impression. On my friend’s profile, while the majority of the information is truthful, there is not a lot of information. Besides the assessment signals, she chose to fill in five activities, fifteen interests, five TV shows, and one quote. She did not fill out about me, political views, or other conventional signals. Based on the few truthful cues she provided, one can form an exaggerated impression. People can only go off the cues she gave. With selective self-presentation, my friend chose what characteristics to emphasize about herself. Again for the most part they were all truthful, but she picked which truthful qualities to display. For example, in her interests she listed one sport, food, book, movie – she chose one of each thing that she felt represented her and perhaps focused on qualities she wanted others to know about. In relation to reallocation of resources, she has more time to think about what she wants to write on her profile and focusing on exactly how to say it. I know that she has edited her profile numerous times to add in one more interest or take away an activity or to quickly detag a picture. Because it is CMC, she has a lot of time to plan how she wants her profile to present herself.
It is hard for me to relate the developmental aspect and behavioral confirmation to her facebook profile. I do believe that over time one’s impression may change because there is more time to find out more information about him/her but I am not sure if this is true or not with my friend. I also don’t know about the behavioral confirmation because I’m unsure of how people have thought of her and whether or not she changed and acted in a similar way.
In general, many aspects of the Hyperpersonal Model apply to my friend’s self-presentation tactics.
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It is interesting to note that you included facebook pictures as a part of conventional signals. I, specifically, had a hard time deciding which category it belonged to, but ended up saying pictures are an assessment signal. I reasoned that photos can give a lot of information about height, weight, skin color, etc. In this way, I feel as though photos are a medium in which assessment signals are used. However, I can also understand why photos might be a conventional signal because you can tag or untag yourself in pictures so that only a certain impression can be formed. For example if a guy's pictures always showed him drinking and partying, one would get the impression that he is a "frat boy" and not too worried about academics. Based on selective self-presentation, one can mold impression formation by filtering the kinds of photos you display about yourself.
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