For assignment number four, I chose to analyze the truthfulness of my friend's facebook page. I chose a very close friend of mine to make sure that the information I got from her will be as accurate as possible.
First of all, I request her to rate each elements in her facebook profile on a scale from 1 (completely inaccurate) to 5 (completely accurate). She responded with either 4 or 5 for every part of her profile. And she claims that for everything that she would lie about, she just chose not to show it in her profile. The reason for rating some elements as address, courses, and interests was because she had not updated her profile, or some of her preferences have since changed. Based on my knowledge of her, my own observations have confirmed that her facebook profile information is very accurate.
It’s interesting that while social distance theory suggests people will use most “socially distant” media to lie, facebook, as a relatively more distant media, is more honest than assumed. I think this is because of its social-network-based nature. We register with our school’s email address, which is hard to fake, and we add friends that we have in real life, thus, lying in profile information can be easily found out. While media richness theory, suggests that people will more likely to lie in rich media. Considering Facebook as a relatively rich media, I think feature based approach might be more suitable in this case. Facebook is an asynchronous space, high in recordability, and users are distributed. These all suggest that people are not likely to lie on Facebook.
6 comments:
Yu,
I agree that the Feature based approach is appropriate here. I also liked how you addressed aspects of Social Distance Theory and Media Richness Theory. Incorporating several theories makes one think more deeply about the various subtleties and issues or reasons behind deception in a social-networking space such as Facebook. However, the Feature Based Model suggests that distributed communication is better for deception – a small discrepancy in your analysis. Nonetheless, the asynchronous characteristics and recordability factor of Facebook, as well as the common standards surrounding its use (i.e. friends on Facebook are often friends offline) make Facebook a difficult or uncomfortable place to lie. You failed to include an analysis on what constitutes assessment and conventional signals on Facebook, or the “anatomy” of a Facebook profile. I’d be interested in reading these things too because I think such components could have added more depth to your experiment, subsequent analysis, relation to theory, and blog post.
I thought it was very interesting how you hypothesized that people do not lie very often on facebook because of the social networking aspect. Although there are people who meet through facebook and do not know eachother personally, there are also people on facebook who are close friends and know eachother very well. This can be a confusing aspect and might explain why although facebook is a distant media, people do not lie very often on it.
I chose the same option you did, and interviewed a close friend of mine who also said she didn't lie throughout her Facebook profile because all of her friends knew who she was and could easily call her out on the made-up contents of her profile. The recordability and other such aspects of Facebook might have a large part to do with the choice my friend made to not lie.
Do you think it's because they don't believe they have anyone to impress online, and that most impressions are better made through face to face interaction? I know that I could make a more solid impression if I met someone in person for the first time, versus interacting with someone over the internet.
To start this comment off i would like to quote your statement that "for everything that she would lie about, she just chose not to show it in her profile." I think this is one of the reasons why the facebook profiles pretty much came out 4 or 5's with very little lies. The need to lie is minimal because of the option facebook gives us by allowing us to choose what we display and who can see what. This is different from dating sites because profiles must be standerized in order for every one to be even. Facebook allows us to add and delete certain categories that we like or do not like.
Hey, I was very impressed with your understanding and application of communication theory. I also chose his assignment and I found a similar level of accuracy, and any discrepency was also based upon outdated information. I don't have much more to say other than that I had a very similar analyses and that I was impressed with the depth of your inquiry.
Hi Yu,
Nice post! I think you did a great job at analyzing theory and applying them here.
Your friend's selective self-presentation is very telling about the nature of this social network. Because your friend uses this network to connect with existing friends and to make new friends, the Multichannel approach can also be used to explain your friend's effort. Instead of simply meeting people the old fashioned way she engages in an online social network to further achieve her means. O'Sullivan's Impression Management Model seems to be linked to the Feature Based Approach because your friend's efforts to connect with friends, and maintain a good rapport, dictates her use of the network. Lying would contradict your friend's efforts, given her friend's previous knowledge of her, and the features of Facebook led itself well to attempts for honesty.
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