For this assignment, I chose to take a close look at one of my friend’s facebook profiles and assess the signals she chose to represent herself. She displayed details which directly related to her character that were hard to manipulate and therefore are considered to be assessment signals. Examples of these signals displayed in her profile were the school she is currently enrolled in (Cornell), the year she plans to graduate (2009), her hometown, the name of the high school from which she graduated, her date of birth, and her contact information (email, screen name, and current residence in collegetown). These displays of information are hard to manipulate in comparison to conventional signals which are low cost displays of information that only describe characteristics that are conventionally associated with a characteristic. For example, my friend had provided a great deal of information about her interests, her activities, and some of her favorite quotes. In addition, she has pictures that her friends can view but only the ones she wishes to have “tagged” of herself, belongs to a wide variety of facebook groups, and has wall posts from friends and acquaintances displayed for the public eye to see.
After looking at all of the characteristics my friend chose to share with others through her profile, I had her rate the level accuracy of these descriptions. She rated elements such as her interests and activities as a very accurate depiction of herself. On the other hand, she rated elements such as her facebook picture and tagged photos of herself as only moderately accurate of herself because she had the ability to edit them. Finally, I looked at her answers and attempted to verify the validity of them. Overall, I think that her ratings were relatively accurate and prove that there are certain signals more easily manipulated than others in a mediated source of technology such as facebook.
In light of the theories we have studied, I think that the assessment of my friend’s facebook profile validates the feature-based model proposed by Hancock et al. This theory explains how people are more likely to lie in synchronous conversation which contrasts with the framework of facebook which is asynchronous. This is one feature that discourages deception through the facebook medium. In addition, people tend to lie or deceive others when the interaction is not recordable, such as in face to face. Because everything on facebook gets recorded (wall posts, friends, relationship status, etc.), it deters people from presenting a false description of themselves. These two features support the high level of accuracy of my friend’s profile. On the other hand, the third feature, distribution, increases the possibility of deception which explains certain manipulations on my friend’s profile including her picture, which she admits to editing, and the selective amount of pictures she chose to “tag” of herself. Based on these three features, it makes sense that one’s facebook profile would be relatively accurate with few opportunities for deception.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I agree with you and the parallel you drew to Hancock’s feature-based model. It is in fact true that people are much less likely to lie when it is being recorded. Also, who would actually lie on their facebook profile when the main viewers of your profile are your friends? Your friends are going to know its not you if you put up a picture of someone else. Also a major point that I think is important to recognize is the fact that facebook users have the ability to edit what the viewers see; for example “tagging” and “untagging” desirable or undesirable pictures. I thought this was well written with good arguments and supporting facts. Well done!
First of all, well done! I really enjoyed your post and I think you did a very nice job of connecting your experience with theories that we have gone over in class. There is one main point, however, that I might take a different stance on. I'm not sure that I agree that everything on Facebook is recorded. The difference, between Facebook, and let's say e-mail, is that Facebook you can control everything from your computer. E-mail, on the other hand, is out of your control once you send it. Facebook allows us to edit what gets recorded, and how long it is recorded for. Let's say that someone lies about something on Facebook. Yes, people might see it and figure it out as being a lie, which in itself is not terribly likely, but the Facebook account owner can always go and delete the lie from their profile. There is now no more record of the fact that they lied. Wall posts, comments, pictures, and profiles can all be deleted off of Facebook, thus leaving no real record of their existence. That's just a view point different from your own that can be considered. Thanks for the post!
Post a Comment