I have a close friend at Binghamton University which is an hour away from my location, Cornell University. We emailed each other because we were both in the same sorority, and we met once or twice at national meetings or conventions. We did not become close, however, until I started instant messaging her more frequently because her blog and away messages seemed to indicate her sad mood. Over the course of a month, we learned more about each other and became close. We would communicate mostly through instant messaging, though we would call eachother randomly. When it came time for another national meeting, I even stayed at her place because I was not from the area. We still keep in close contact, though the distance does not allow us to talk very frequently.
Wallace's factors can be attributed to the reasons why my relationship with my friend remained strong despite the distance. The following are the two main factors of Wallace's attraction factors that pertain to the relationship I have with my friend.
Proximity: The proximity effect says that those who have greater proximity have more opportunity to meet and get to know each other. Those with great proximity in CMC experience greater intersection frequency where they "run into" each other online.
My friend and I experienced the proximity effect. Our schools are close to each other, and our sorority chapters interact frequently. A big reason why I continued keeping in contact with my friend was because I expected future interactions with her. I would not have put in the same effort if she had been from Massachusetts. We also used similar online forms of communication such as our sorority meetings, online blog circles, and AOL Instant Messenger. We were also both very active in contributing and participating in these activities. This furthered our relationship development because our intersection frequency was high.
Common Ground: Wallace states that "people tend to like those with similar attitudes and ideas". The law of attraction is based off the proportion of shared commonalities. The level of interaction is proportional to the proportion of shared attitudes.
In the case of my friend and I, we started off with a huge common ground, our sorority. We were both very enthusiastic in contributing and participating to upcoming events. As we got to know eachother, we both realized that we were pensive and spent a lot of time reading interesting articles online. We were also both sarcastic and able to joke around. Our relationship development also followed the expected outcomes for CMC relationships. It seemed me and my friend had infinite amounts in common. When we met FTF I could tell we had less in common than I had presumed, but our strong common ground helped perpetuate our relationship.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
I Think I Kinda Like You-#5
This assignment brings me back in time to the summer before freshman year, the summer where "Facebooking" Cornell '10 students was only third next to breathing and eating. Back then it was like the amazing race to friend as many Cornellians as possible or risk getting to college and not "knowing" anybody! I never intended to "talk" to anyone before meeting them, but then one day one of my new "friends" IM'ed me.
The conversation started off polite, we talked about our shared excitement on going to Cornell. We weren't really looking forward to all the work, but definitely ready to leave home and be independent for once. We connected on our common background, protective Asian parents that expected straight A's and what do you know, we both love partying and hanging out with friends too! Wow, this was too great! Who would ever guess that I would meet another guy who was smart, Asian, loved hanging out with friends and going to Cornell! As time went on we constantly IM'ed each other and talked about whatever was on our minds. Eventually, we exchanged numbers too. I absolutely loved to talk and he seemed to love listening to me talk. I made sure never to reveal too much about my past though, didn't want to scare the guy away. Things were going great though and orientation was going to start soon! We could not wait to meet each other and...
During my interaction with this guy I always made sure to be careful about how much information I shared. I did not want him to think I was this crazy Asian girl who liked to party just a little too much. Also, I did not want him to know about some of my past relationship experiences because I was afraid he would think less of me. I even found myself editing my facebook because I knew that was how he found me, so I wanted to present the best me. I really enjoy talking on the phone and I think it's a great way to show off my personality and warmth, so I always told him to call me if he got the chance. I was definitely controlling what he knew about me through self-presentational tactics and it seemed to work, so I continued to do it.
Connecting to Similar Others- Based on the common ground principle, it is easy for us to identify with people who share the same similar interests and experiences as ourselves.
I know that one of the reasons I enjoyed talking to him so much was that I had never actually spoken to another Asian guy who was not a relative. Also, since we could only talk about so much, our conversation always seemed to lead back to our similar interests and we ignored the comments we made about dissimilar tastes. The fact that we were talking online made it easy to switch topics versus face to face where sometimes it's awkward to do such a change. Our relationship seemed to progress based on the few things we knew about each other, but they were things we shared in common so I thought this must mean we have a lot of other things in common too.
...yeah, things were much better in our computer mediated world than face to face. After orientation week we never talked or saw each other again. I think it had something to do with the fact that he was much more shy and reserved in person (There must have been a removal of gating features, i.e. shyness, on his part.) and I was much more outgoing. Our personalities seemed to clash once the screen and phone disappeared. I guess online relationships sometimes stay online for a reason!
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The conversation started off polite, we talked about our shared excitement on going to Cornell. We weren't really looking forward to all the work, but definitely ready to leave home and be independent for once. We connected on our common background, protective Asian parents that expected straight A's and what do you know, we both love partying and hanging out with friends too! Wow, this was too great! Who would ever guess that I would meet another guy who was smart, Asian, loved hanging out with friends and going to Cornell! As time went on we constantly IM'ed each other and talked about whatever was on our minds. Eventually, we exchanged numbers too. I absolutely loved to talk and he seemed to love listening to me talk. I made sure never to reveal too much about my past though, didn't want to scare the guy away. Things were going great though and orientation was going to start soon! We could not wait to meet each other and...
McKenna's Relationship Facilitation Factors:
Interactional Control- We control what people know about us and use self-presentational tactics to preserve our appearance. If we're good at synchronous chat we will choose to do so because it also shows the positive about us.During my interaction with this guy I always made sure to be careful about how much information I shared. I did not want him to think I was this crazy Asian girl who liked to party just a little too much. Also, I did not want him to know about some of my past relationship experiences because I was afraid he would think less of me. I even found myself editing my facebook because I knew that was how he found me, so I wanted to present the best me. I really enjoy talking on the phone and I think it's a great way to show off my personality and warmth, so I always told him to call me if he got the chance. I was definitely controlling what he knew about me through self-presentational tactics and it seemed to work, so I continued to do it.
Connecting to Similar Others- Based on the common ground principle, it is easy for us to identify with people who share the same similar interests and experiences as ourselves.
I know that one of the reasons I enjoyed talking to him so much was that I had never actually spoken to another Asian guy who was not a relative. Also, since we could only talk about so much, our conversation always seemed to lead back to our similar interests and we ignored the comments we made about dissimilar tastes. The fact that we were talking online made it easy to switch topics versus face to face where sometimes it's awkward to do such a change. Our relationship seemed to progress based on the few things we knew about each other, but they were things we shared in common so I thought this must mean we have a lot of other things in common too.
...yeah, things were much better in our computer mediated world than face to face. After orientation week we never talked or saw each other again. I think it had something to do with the fact that he was much more shy and reserved in person (There must have been a removal of gating features, i.e. shyness, on his part.) and I was much more outgoing. Our personalities seemed to clash once the screen and phone disappeared. I guess online relationships sometimes stay online for a reason!
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Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Assignment 4 ----option 2 facebook
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.
4: Deception Experiment
I recently met Zack on campus. Our friendship is just beginning to move beyond that superficial stage, so Zack does not know a lot about me, putting him at a disadvantage for deception detection. Initially, I did not tell him he was my subject for this assignment.
Thursday night we went out for drinks and I told Zack a true story about a trip I recently took to Ireland. I found it much easier to pair the truth portion of this assignment with a rich channel. Telling the truth using a rich medium supports the Social Distance Theory because I was more comfortable, given the nonverbal social cues and the synchronicity of the interaction. If I had more intense feedback while lying, I would have worried more about the quality of my impression management.
I based my fictional travel story off of a vague recollection of an old friend’s experiences as an exchange student in Germany, in an effort to make it as believable as possible. I selected e-mail as my means of telling this lie, figuring it would better enable me to thoroughly explain the experience and minimize Zack ability to detect the lie based on the lack of nonverbal cues. With additional time to logically and convincingly tell my lie, I effectively deceived my friend, although he mentioned he thought it awkward that I went into such a long description of a trip via e-mail. He said that he believed me because he had no reason to suspect I was lying.
Choosing e-mail instead of richer channel supports the Social Distance Theory. If I had to lie I felt much easier to lie at a distance. The type of lie required for this assignment did not warrant that emotional need to “thoroughly convince” my friend which eliminated the need to do it face-to-face. In a way, this situation supports Daft and Lensel’s Media Richness Theory because the equivocality of the task was not so great that I needed a rich medium, although it was also not so small that a particularly lean medium would do. Fewer cues were desired to make the task easier which had little to do with efficiency but more with comfort thus leading to also support DePaulo’s Social Distance Theory. Telling this lie certainly took me out of my element, but doing so from a distance made it easier. Overall, while there were aspects of MRT that support the means of this interaction, face-to-face cues were not going to make my lie more convincing thus negating this aspect of the theory. The fact that I lied about my “actions” and the explanations surrounding my trip via email further supports Social Distance Theory. Had I told the story in person, I feel confident that my friend would have sensed my lie, which leads me to realize that there was some impression management involved in the experiment. I figured that telling the lie in person would have a negative impact on my friend’s perception of me, and there was some thought invested in my self-presentation.
Thursday night we went out for drinks and I told Zack a true story about a trip I recently took to Ireland. I found it much easier to pair the truth portion of this assignment with a rich channel. Telling the truth using a rich medium supports the Social Distance Theory because I was more comfortable, given the nonverbal social cues and the synchronicity of the interaction. If I had more intense feedback while lying, I would have worried more about the quality of my impression management.
I based my fictional travel story off of a vague recollection of an old friend’s experiences as an exchange student in Germany, in an effort to make it as believable as possible. I selected e-mail as my means of telling this lie, figuring it would better enable me to thoroughly explain the experience and minimize Zack ability to detect the lie based on the lack of nonverbal cues. With additional time to logically and convincingly tell my lie, I effectively deceived my friend, although he mentioned he thought it awkward that I went into such a long description of a trip via e-mail. He said that he believed me because he had no reason to suspect I was lying.
Choosing e-mail instead of richer channel supports the Social Distance Theory. If I had to lie I felt much easier to lie at a distance. The type of lie required for this assignment did not warrant that emotional need to “thoroughly convince” my friend which eliminated the need to do it face-to-face. In a way, this situation supports Daft and Lensel’s Media Richness Theory because the equivocality of the task was not so great that I needed a rich medium, although it was also not so small that a particularly lean medium would do. Fewer cues were desired to make the task easier which had little to do with efficiency but more with comfort thus leading to also support DePaulo’s Social Distance Theory. Telling this lie certainly took me out of my element, but doing so from a distance made it easier. Overall, while there were aspects of MRT that support the means of this interaction, face-to-face cues were not going to make my lie more convincing thus negating this aspect of the theory. The fact that I lied about my “actions” and the explanations surrounding my trip via email further supports Social Distance Theory. Had I told the story in person, I feel confident that my friend would have sensed my lie, which leads me to realize that there was some impression management involved in the experiment. I figured that telling the lie in person would have a negative impact on my friend’s perception of me, and there was some thought invested in my self-presentation.
Assignment#4:
I thought it'd be interesting to review a facebook profile of a friend I made over the summer.
For the self-assessment, he judged his profile fairly accurate.
Name: 5
Profile Photo: 5
Sex: 5
Birthday: 5
Hometown: 5
Mini-Feed: 5
Contact Info (Email and Residence): 5
Website: 1
Interests: 5
Favorite Music: 5
Favorite Quotes: 5
Favorite Movies: 5
Education Info: 5
Work Info: 5
Networks: 5
Friends: 5
Groups: 5
After reviewing his profile, I made an assessment myself.
Name: 5
Profile Photo: 3
Sex: 5
Birthday: 5
Hometown: 5
Mini-Feed: 5
Contact Info (Email and Residence): 5
Website: 3
Interests: 5
Favorite Music: 5
Favorite Quotes: 3
Favorite Movies: 5
Education Info: 5
Work Info: 5
Networks: 5
Friends: 4
Groups: 4
His profile picture is ambivalent, because he's standing with his two brothers without tags. I also feel that while his profile picture is neutral, it doesn't represent his appearance in person well. However, his intentions are not to false image: he never untags himself from photos other people upload or deletes mini feed items.
Considering the fact that he is an engineer and has been constantly on a job market looking for internships, he selectively shares personal information. His interested sex, political and religious views are not listed, while more than 20 of his obscure favorite bands and movies take up most of the profile. Although I have not heard of most bands listed, I believe it's pretty accurate, because bands he went to concerts over the summer are included. In my knowledge, the only faulty information he gives is his website. He lists his favorite bakery as one. However, I believe even that bit of information reveals who he is: he loves eating pastries and the jokes how he wants to quit engineering and open a bakery.
Blatant deception on facebook is rare within a relatively small network, because the information shared is available for verification by other members. However, members are allowed to adjust the amount of information available. Hancock's Feature-Based Model seems to be at work in this case. Selective representation of informaion is the most powerful tool in asynchronous, tractable environment.
For the self-assessment, he judged his profile fairly accurate.
Name: 5
Profile Photo: 5
Sex: 5
Birthday: 5
Hometown: 5
Mini-Feed: 5
Contact Info (Email and Residence): 5
Website: 1
Interests: 5
Favorite Music: 5
Favorite Quotes: 5
Favorite Movies: 5
Education Info: 5
Work Info: 5
Networks: 5
Friends: 5
Groups: 5
After reviewing his profile, I made an assessment myself.
Name: 5
Profile Photo: 3
Sex: 5
Birthday: 5
Hometown: 5
Mini-Feed: 5
Contact Info (Email and Residence): 5
Website: 3
Interests: 5
Favorite Music: 5
Favorite Quotes: 3
Favorite Movies: 5
Education Info: 5
Work Info: 5
Networks: 5
Friends: 4
Groups: 4
His profile picture is ambivalent, because he's standing with his two brothers without tags. I also feel that while his profile picture is neutral, it doesn't represent his appearance in person well. However, his intentions are not to false image: he never untags himself from photos other people upload or deletes mini feed items.
Considering the fact that he is an engineer and has been constantly on a job market looking for internships, he selectively shares personal information. His interested sex, political and religious views are not listed, while more than 20 of his obscure favorite bands and movies take up most of the profile. Although I have not heard of most bands listed, I believe it's pretty accurate, because bands he went to concerts over the summer are included. In my knowledge, the only faulty information he gives is his website. He lists his favorite bakery as one. However, I believe even that bit of information reveals who he is: he loves eating pastries and the jokes how he wants to quit engineering and open a bakery.
Blatant deception on facebook is rare within a relatively small network, because the information shared is available for verification by other members. However, members are allowed to adjust the amount of information available. Hancock's Feature-Based Model seems to be at work in this case. Selective representation of informaion is the most powerful tool in asynchronous, tractable environment.
4- No Deception in Facebook?
Facebook and Myspace are two places to keep in touch with old friends, students in your school and also a place to meet someone new. Due to the advancement of Facebook with more of a user friendly applications as well as a more private profile page the popularity of Facebook took off. Since this explosion of users occurred more people have joined and it’s not as private as it used to be. This could possibly be the reason someone would lie about himself or herself when filling out a profile. I decided that I would ask a roommate of mine that I met through the Cornell ’11 network through the Low Rise 6 Group.
To start off this experiment I logged into Facebook and viewed what can actually be filled in for the profile and started to list them for my survey. After compiling a list of different categories I decided to narrow the list down to the 10 categories that I would check if I were going to meet someone new. The categories I choose were: Name, Photos, Networks, Sex, Relationship Status, Birthday, Hometown, Contact Info, Personal Info: Music, TV Shows, Movies, Books, and Groups. They were chosen because the truth can be revealed about these topics when talking Face to Face.
I decided to log into her profile first and look at each item and then make my grade from what I knew about her from the last 3 weeks that we have been together here at cornel and this is how the results went:
Name: 5
Photos: 4
Networks: 5
Sex: 5
Relationship Status: 5
Birthday: 5
Hometown: 5
Contact Info: 5
Personal Info
• Music: 5
• TV Shows: 4
• Movies: 5
• Books: 3
Groups: 4
After I finished the survey about her profile, I then gave her the survey to fill out to see what she actually lied about if she did at all and her response was as follows:
Name: 5
Photos: 5
Networks: 5
Sex: 5
Relationship Status: 5
Birthday: 5
Hometown: 5
Contact Info: 5
Personal Info
• Music: 4
• TV Shows: 5
• Movies: 5
• Books: 5
Groups: 5
When she asked me that question I knew that I was not going to get the response that I was looking for because of the implication that its stupid to lie on Facebook. The one category I thought she might have added some flavor to was the books but after having a discussion with her about some of the books that she listed I later came to the conclusion that everything she said was true. The outcomes of this experiment are going to be interesting to read because I think Facebook is a space where you don’t really need to lie about anything because the people you are going to be friends with will know you. If this was a dating site like match.com or something along those lines we would probably have seen some stretching of information in order to look good in their profile page, but since its more of a social thing lying doesn’t make sense.
I believe that the only real theory used for Facebook is deception. We have access to different types of photos of the person that we are looking at, but the person whos profile it is has the ability to choose which go up. Facebook combines both rich and lean media together. The thing with Facebook is that if you are just meeting a person on your network for the first time your impression management will be based on the pictures and hopefully the truthfulness of their profile.
To start off this experiment I logged into Facebook and viewed what can actually be filled in for the profile and started to list them for my survey. After compiling a list of different categories I decided to narrow the list down to the 10 categories that I would check if I were going to meet someone new. The categories I choose were: Name, Photos, Networks, Sex, Relationship Status, Birthday, Hometown, Contact Info, Personal Info: Music, TV Shows, Movies, Books, and Groups. They were chosen because the truth can be revealed about these topics when talking Face to Face.
I decided to log into her profile first and look at each item and then make my grade from what I knew about her from the last 3 weeks that we have been together here at cornel and this is how the results went:
Name: 5
Photos: 4
Networks: 5
Sex: 5
Relationship Status: 5
Birthday: 5
Hometown: 5
Contact Info: 5
Personal Info
• Music: 5
• TV Shows: 4
• Movies: 5
• Books: 3
Groups: 4
After I finished the survey about her profile, I then gave her the survey to fill out to see what she actually lied about if she did at all and her response was as follows:
Name: 5
Photos: 5
Networks: 5
Sex: 5
Relationship Status: 5
Birthday: 5
Hometown: 5
Contact Info: 5
Personal Info
• Music: 4
• TV Shows: 5
• Movies: 5
• Books: 5
Groups: 5
When she asked me that question I knew that I was not going to get the response that I was looking for because of the implication that its stupid to lie on Facebook. The one category I thought she might have added some flavor to was the books but after having a discussion with her about some of the books that she listed I later came to the conclusion that everything she said was true. The outcomes of this experiment are going to be interesting to read because I think Facebook is a space where you don’t really need to lie about anything because the people you are going to be friends with will know you. If this was a dating site like match.com or something along those lines we would probably have seen some stretching of information in order to look good in their profile page, but since its more of a social thing lying doesn’t make sense.
I believe that the only real theory used for Facebook is deception. We have access to different types of photos of the person that we are looking at, but the person whos profile it is has the ability to choose which go up. Facebook combines both rich and lean media together. The thing with Facebook is that if you are just meeting a person on your network for the first time your impression management will be based on the pictures and hopefully the truthfulness of their profile.
Assignment 4--The Complete Truth on Facebook
Facebook in very recent years has become an almost incomprehensible phenomenon for high school and college students. Students spend hours on the site looking at profile pages of friends, events, and groups they belong to. Many update their profile pages religiously--one friend on Facebook I have updates her profile once a day, and her status (a quick "Name" is doing _____ at the top of the profile page) multiple times a day.
The type of information put into Facebook profiles can be categorized according to definitions by Donath of conventional signals (costly displays directly related to the person's characteristics) and assessment signals (characteristics which have lower cost to lie about, and are only associated with the person). Assessment signals one might send on Facebook include name, pictures (direct representations of the person's appearance), gender, religious and political views, networks, some groups (depending on if membership to that group requires administrative approval of the crerator), screename, and e-mail. Conventional signals include major, favorite music, movies, About Me section, interests, activities, and favorite quotes.
I chose a close friend to interview in my experiment so that I could assess the accuracy of what she posted in her Facebook profile. I asked her to rate her name, birthday, political views, religious views, Instant Messanger screenname, activities, interests, music, about me, pictures (i.e did they look like her and accurately depict her life), groups (i.e do they portray who you really are), and added applications. Overall, she believed that she depicted herself very accurately, with an average of 4.41. Having known her a while, I rated her accuracy on the 1-5 scale with an average of 4.25. I believe that although she didn't outright lie, she may have included only positive information about herself in the About Me section, portraying her in a more favorful light. In addition, I have known her to "detag" Facebook pictures, de-associating herself from pictures that do not portray how she wants to appear appearance-wise. Another subtlety that was not completely true was her name. Although her profile name was the name most people call her, she still hadn't legally changed it to the name on the profile. Also, under favorite music she included one artist that she was "obsessed" with at the moment but I have known her to listen to many other artists.
On the whole however, my friend lied more subtly and more frequently in the conventional signals rather than the assessment signals, confirming Donath's Theory. According to Goffman, the goals on online dating websites (Facebook is similar in many ways in that it contains profile information a user is encouraged to self-disclose information) are to appear attractive and honest. To do this, according to the Self Presentation Goals Theory, one must lie frequently and subtly. According to my friend's profile, she certainly lied subtly. There were no outright untruths (all information on her profile was 3 or above). I think part of her motivation was, as the theory predicts, to appear more honest, but also since her Facebook account is mostly viewed by her friends, she would have no choice in many cases but to tell the truth to avoid detection. For instance, since those viewing her profile generally knew what she looked like, she couldn't put up pictures of Heidi Klum and get away with people thinking she was Heidi Klum's sister. Instead, she did a more subtle form of deception, associating herself with pictures that made her look more attractive by tagging the "good" ones and untagging the "bad" ones.
Although I wouldn't say her lies were frequent, they all conformed to a positive image she wanted to portray on her Facebook account. I think this is how many people tailor their Facebook profiles: they alter each signal (most often the conventional signals) subtly and frequently to portray a slightly modified self to those able to view their Facebook profiles. This strategic deception is something we all seem to be guilty of, and conform to the Selective Self-Presentation part of the Hyperpersonal Model in which we emphasize those characteristics that portray us in a positive light, and mitigate those that we do not want to portray.
The type of information put into Facebook profiles can be categorized according to definitions by Donath of conventional signals (costly displays directly related to the person's characteristics) and assessment signals (characteristics which have lower cost to lie about, and are only associated with the person). Assessment signals one might send on Facebook include name, pictures (direct representations of the person's appearance), gender, religious and political views, networks, some groups (depending on if membership to that group requires administrative approval of the crerator), screename, and e-mail. Conventional signals include major, favorite music, movies, About Me section, interests, activities, and favorite quotes.
I chose a close friend to interview in my experiment so that I could assess the accuracy of what she posted in her Facebook profile. I asked her to rate her name, birthday, political views, religious views, Instant Messanger screenname, activities, interests, music, about me, pictures (i.e did they look like her and accurately depict her life), groups (i.e do they portray who you really are), and added applications. Overall, she believed that she depicted herself very accurately, with an average of 4.41. Having known her a while, I rated her accuracy on the 1-5 scale with an average of 4.25. I believe that although she didn't outright lie, she may have included only positive information about herself in the About Me section, portraying her in a more favorful light. In addition, I have known her to "detag" Facebook pictures, de-associating herself from pictures that do not portray how she wants to appear appearance-wise. Another subtlety that was not completely true was her name. Although her profile name was the name most people call her, she still hadn't legally changed it to the name on the profile. Also, under favorite music she included one artist that she was "obsessed" with at the moment but I have known her to listen to many other artists.
On the whole however, my friend lied more subtly and more frequently in the conventional signals rather than the assessment signals, confirming Donath's Theory. According to Goffman, the goals on online dating websites (Facebook is similar in many ways in that it contains profile information a user is encouraged to self-disclose information) are to appear attractive and honest. To do this, according to the Self Presentation Goals Theory, one must lie frequently and subtly. According to my friend's profile, she certainly lied subtly. There were no outright untruths (all information on her profile was 3 or above). I think part of her motivation was, as the theory predicts, to appear more honest, but also since her Facebook account is mostly viewed by her friends, she would have no choice in many cases but to tell the truth to avoid detection. For instance, since those viewing her profile generally knew what she looked like, she couldn't put up pictures of Heidi Klum and get away with people thinking she was Heidi Klum's sister. Instead, she did a more subtle form of deception, associating herself with pictures that made her look more attractive by tagging the "good" ones and untagging the "bad" ones.
Although I wouldn't say her lies were frequent, they all conformed to a positive image she wanted to portray on her Facebook account. I think this is how many people tailor their Facebook profiles: they alter each signal (most often the conventional signals) subtly and frequently to portray a slightly modified self to those able to view their Facebook profiles. This strategic deception is something we all seem to be guilty of, and conform to the Selective Self-Presentation part of the Hyperpersonal Model in which we emphasize those characteristics that portray us in a positive light, and mitigate those that we do not want to portray.
For this assignment I decided to analyse the facebook profile of a good friend of mine who relatively recently got a job working on a presidential campaign. When she first started looking for a job on a presidential campaign, my friend deleted almost her entire profile: pictures, wall-posts, groups, and almost all her personal information. Upon reflection, she says she did so out of necessity. The campaign managers use facebook not only as a tool for judging an individual's character, but also for assessing their personal acquaintances in an attempt to avoid hiring "the enemy." She removed as much frivolous information from her account as possible in order to appear as neutral as possible to future employers. After getting the job working on a campaign, her profile has yet again changed. Her campaign manager chose to shorten her name in person, and as a result she changed it on profile in a sort of attempt to announce to the rest of her world that she was shortening her name. Her profile is now filled with political statements wherever they may fit in: status, groups, networks, work info, and the "US politics" section. After asking her to analyse her own profile based on Catalina's 1-5 scale, she came up with the following ratings:
name: 4
networks: 5
sex: 5
interested in: 4
birthday: 5
hometown: 5
political views: 5 (an enthusiastic one at that!)
contact info: 5
personal info: 3
photos: 2
groups: 4
educational info: 5
work info: 3
representations of herself. I even went as far as to poke fun, but was met with defense on her part as she emphasized the importance of ambiguity in her representation of self in the professional world. Though she wasn't necessarily being deceptive in her presented information, she was certainly creating a deceptive representation of her whole self in her When I asked her why her accuracy ratings for personal information were lower than her generic information, she claimed to have done so out of necessity. in order to appear intelligent, hard working, and neutral to those potentially hiring her to work on a campaign she had to delete anything in her profile that had the potential to be used as a judge of character. As a result, when analysing her current profile, she noted that the lower accuracy ratings for personal items including the info, photos, groups, etc. were due to her withholding information about herself, not her making up any lies. Thus, she chose selctive self-representation as a mode of deception. The only activity she kept in her profile, though she participated in many in college, was Phi Beta Kappa, a national honors society. The only work information she kept in her profile, though she has a wide range of experience, is her current position as a field organizer for a presidential candidate. These were all elements of her profile that I, as a close friend, was able to pick up on as inaccurate.
In essence, I believe that she removed as many assessment signals (old photos and wall posts, personal information, previous work experience) from her profile as she possibly could, and chose to keep only conventional signals present (name, contact info, a few generic bits of personal information) in order to create identity based deception in an asynchronous online scape. Facebook, as an asynchronous space, allows her to pick and choose which assessment signals she wants to represent herself with. Her initial lack of assessment signals allowed her to initially maintain ambiguity in her public representation of self when trying to obtain the job. Once hired, she boosted her assessment signals but only in her public support for her candidate. Thus, I think my friend followed the hyperpersonal model in modifying her facebook profile, as she chose to create a very selective representation of herself without actually lying. The "self" represented on facebook is no where near the "self" I have known for many years, however no lies exist in her profile, only omissions of the truth. This is perhaps explained by the feature-based approach which notes that people tend not to lie in situations that are recordable, of which facebook is certainly one.
name: 4
networks: 5
sex: 5
interested in: 4
birthday: 5
hometown: 5
political views: 5 (an enthusiastic one at that!)
contact info: 5
personal info: 3
photos: 2
groups: 4
educational info: 5
work info: 3
representations of herself. I even went as far as to poke fun, but was met with defense on her part as she emphasized the importance of ambiguity in her representation of self in the professional world. Though she wasn't necessarily being deceptive in her presented information, she was certainly creating a deceptive representation of her whole self in her When I asked her why her accuracy ratings for personal information were lower than her generic information, she claimed to have done so out of necessity. in order to appear intelligent, hard working, and neutral to those potentially hiring her to work on a campaign she had to delete anything in her profile that had the potential to be used as a judge of character. As a result, when analysing her current profile, she noted that the lower accuracy ratings for personal items including the info, photos, groups, etc. were due to her withholding information about herself, not her making up any lies. Thus, she chose selctive self-representation as a mode of deception. The only activity she kept in her profile, though she participated in many in college, was Phi Beta Kappa, a national honors society. The only work information she kept in her profile, though she has a wide range of experience, is her current position as a field organizer for a presidential candidate. These were all elements of her profile that I, as a close friend, was able to pick up on as inaccurate.
In essence, I believe that she removed as many assessment signals (old photos and wall posts, personal information, previous work experience) from her profile as she possibly could, and chose to keep only conventional signals present (name, contact info, a few generic bits of personal information) in order to create identity based deception in an asynchronous online scape. Facebook, as an asynchronous space, allows her to pick and choose which assessment signals she wants to represent herself with. Her initial lack of assessment signals allowed her to initially maintain ambiguity in her public representation of self when trying to obtain the job. Once hired, she boosted her assessment signals but only in her public support for her candidate. Thus, I think my friend followed the hyperpersonal model in modifying her facebook profile, as she chose to create a very selective representation of herself without actually lying. The "self" represented on facebook is no where near the "self" I have known for many years, however no lies exist in her profile, only omissions of the truth. This is perhaps explained by the feature-based approach which notes that people tend not to lie in situations that are recordable, of which facebook is certainly one.
Assignment #4
By now, everyone either has a facebook profile or at least has heard of facebook. Officially facebook is a social networking tool, initially for college students with a .edu email address but is now open to the public. Unofficially, personal experience tells me most people’s use can be classified as “stalking.” I would argue that “stalking” is anything that one would do on facebook that would rather be avoided in person. For example, browsing through an attractive girl’s (or guy’s) photos or reading personal information of a random person. Keeping this in mind, it is interesting to study the accuracy between one’s online profile and the true self.
Analyzing facebook, the most prominent feature is the online picture located on the top left of the profile page. Here, you select which picture to showcase yourself to the online world. To right, one displays objective information such as your name, gender, school, class, birthday, etc. Directly below is a section for more subjective information such as favorite movies, music, books, etc. Directly below your profile picture, facebook displays a few of your friends and displays any photo albums and other applications. Ultimately, your profile provides the information used for impression formation by anyone who may look. I would say your profile picture and objective information are assessment signals while subjective information and other applications are conventional signals.
I analyzed the facebook profile of a good friend. I’ve known GW since freshman year of high school, so I felt I knew the reasonable accuracy of his profile. The following outline his data:
Name: 5
Photos: 3
Networks: 5
Sex: 5
Interested In: 5
Relationship Status: 5
Birthday: 5
Hometown: 3
Political Views: 4
Contact Info: 5
Favorite Music: 5
Favorite Movies: 4
About Me: 3
Groups: 4
He rated the majority of his profile to be very accurate. However, from my experience, his profile is lacking to be completely honest. For example, RD rated a 5 for his favorite music, while I know from personal experiences that his tastes are much more refined. His favorite movies are also incomplete. His “about me” section is just one line from his favorite song and even though he may identify with it, I know that there is more to RD than what is written.
My experience on facebook falls in line with the Features Based Approach because RD was accurate in the majority of information. The only noticeable deception was only through omission of information. Facebook is asynchronous and keeps a record of all information, therefore Features Based Approach would correctly predict little deception. However, with the deception that did occur, it follows Donath’s identity based signals because he was truthful with objective information/assessment signals while he was not with subjective/conventional signals. Also the selective self-presentation of the Hyperpersonal Model plays a big role because his omission of information could be because RD wants to portray some image of himself that may not be accurate.
Assignment #4: Look Ma! I can lie!
Given my past experiences with lying, I thought this assignment option would be more trouble than fun. I’ve never been the type to get away with anything sneaky. My mother used to always look at me with a grin and say, “Spill the truth. You’ve never been able to tell a good lie, Josh!” But while conjuring possible travel stories and lies, I wondered to myself, “Why am I not a great liar? What does it take to successfully get away with a lie?” In the past I’ve always tried lying face-to-face. But then I questioned: Have I been going about my lying schemes in the wrong way? Does the method of lying and medium used really have an impact?
For this little experiment I felt that it would be a bit odd if I were to contact one of my close friends or Cornell peers regarding my travel experiences (seeing how I usually only talk to my friends about recent news and happenings). For this reason I decided to contact a former co-worker of mine from the law firm I worked at this past summer while in Colorado. This co-worker and I are close, but haven’t spoken since my return to Cornell. I took the initiative to email my co-worker and tell her about my return trip and how the plane was experiencing technical difficulties, causing us to make a stop at a desolate and miserable airport in the middle of Nebraska. I then proceeded to mention the fact that I was stuck in the air plane for nearly 5 hours with little water to drink and surrounded by unhappy airline customers. I did not want the story to be too lengthy or outrageous because I wanted it to be believable. I then concluded the email by saying that my co-worker should give me a call when she had a free moment. Two days later my former co-worker phoned me. She began by inquiring more details regarding the story I had shared in my email, but I smoothly shrugged her inquiries and right away motioned my experiences at the Syracuse airport once I landed in New York. I told her that when I went to pick up my rental car, they were out of compact sedans so they upgraded me to a luxury-trimmed SUV for no extra charge. We then chatted about other things and the conversation ended with me saying I’d call her later that evening.
When I did call her back, I had informed her of the experiment I had put her through. She simply laughed at the thought of one of the stories being fictitious; she stated that they both seemed plausible and factual. I asked her if she knew which story was false, and I was shocked by her answer: she said that she didn’t believe that I had been upgraded to a luxury SUV. She said that not only did it not make much sense for the rental car company, but there was something about the inflection in the tone of my voice. She said I seemed to stutter a bit as though I were nervous while telling her; she could envision me fidgeting while sharing my experience with her. You could only image how surprised she was when she learned that the SUV story was actually true.
Hancock’s study on motivation and lying by means of a CMC environment suggests that deceit and deception can be achieved more efficiently. Because I used the environment of email to relay my lie, I was able to edit my message and control all details being stated. In addition, even though the feature-based model of digital deception mentions that one is least likely to use email as a means of deception because it is asynchronous and a recordable mean of communication, the study did find that in the content of lies, asynchronous modes were most likely to include explanatory lies (such as the one I relayed to my former co-worker). Furthermore, my email follows Zhou’s work on language patterns in deceit.
In the end I guess I learned a new trick and tip: when trying to tell a lie to my mother, perhaps I should send her an email!
-Joshua Navarro
My Comments:
http://comm245purple.blogspot.com/2007/09/assign-4-mind-over-medium.html
http://comm245purple.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment-4-travel-deception.html
For this little experiment I felt that it would be a bit odd if I were to contact one of my close friends or Cornell peers regarding my travel experiences (seeing how I usually only talk to my friends about recent news and happenings). For this reason I decided to contact a former co-worker of mine from the law firm I worked at this past summer while in Colorado. This co-worker and I are close, but haven’t spoken since my return to Cornell. I took the initiative to email my co-worker and tell her about my return trip and how the plane was experiencing technical difficulties, causing us to make a stop at a desolate and miserable airport in the middle of Nebraska. I then proceeded to mention the fact that I was stuck in the air plane for nearly 5 hours with little water to drink and surrounded by unhappy airline customers. I did not want the story to be too lengthy or outrageous because I wanted it to be believable. I then concluded the email by saying that my co-worker should give me a call when she had a free moment. Two days later my former co-worker phoned me. She began by inquiring more details regarding the story I had shared in my email, but I smoothly shrugged her inquiries and right away motioned my experiences at the Syracuse airport once I landed in New York. I told her that when I went to pick up my rental car, they were out of compact sedans so they upgraded me to a luxury-trimmed SUV for no extra charge. We then chatted about other things and the conversation ended with me saying I’d call her later that evening.
When I did call her back, I had informed her of the experiment I had put her through. She simply laughed at the thought of one of the stories being fictitious; she stated that they both seemed plausible and factual. I asked her if she knew which story was false, and I was shocked by her answer: she said that she didn’t believe that I had been upgraded to a luxury SUV. She said that not only did it not make much sense for the rental car company, but there was something about the inflection in the tone of my voice. She said I seemed to stutter a bit as though I were nervous while telling her; she could envision me fidgeting while sharing my experience with her. You could only image how surprised she was when she learned that the SUV story was actually true.
Hancock’s study on motivation and lying by means of a CMC environment suggests that deceit and deception can be achieved more efficiently. Because I used the environment of email to relay my lie, I was able to edit my message and control all details being stated. In addition, even though the feature-based model of digital deception mentions that one is least likely to use email as a means of deception because it is asynchronous and a recordable mean of communication, the study did find that in the content of lies, asynchronous modes were most likely to include explanatory lies (such as the one I relayed to my former co-worker). Furthermore, my email follows Zhou’s work on language patterns in deceit.
In the end I guess I learned a new trick and tip: when trying to tell a lie to my mother, perhaps I should send her an email!
-Joshua Navarro
My Comments:
http://comm245purple.blogspot.com/2007/09/assign-4-mind-over-medium.html
http://comm245purple.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment-4-travel-deception.html
4: Opt. 2 An honest profile?
For this weeks assignment, I decided to analyze my best friend’s Facebook. I expected to find a great deal of exageration and selective self presentation, as facebook is an easily modifiable and widely utilized forum for social interaction amoungst college students. I started out by looking carefully through his profile. I could not detect a single piece of falsehood on the page, and I have been very close with this individual since we were three. When I interviewed him about his profile, his scores were as such:
Name: 5
Sex: 5
Interested In: 5
Relationship Status: 5
Looking For:5
Birthday: 5
Hometown: 5
Political Views: 5
Contact Info (Email and Residence): 5
Interests: 5
Favorite Music: 5
Favorite Quotes: 5
Favorite TV Shows: 5
Favorite Movies: 5
Education Info: 5
Work Info: 5
Profile Photo: 5
Networks: 5
Friends: 5
Groups: 5
It is clear that my friend was completely honest on his profile. He, like most college students, uses the site constantly. He keeps his page updated to manage his self presentation to accurately reflect his present interests. His profile photograph was an honest and reflective photo, and he has hundreds of redundant tagged photos of him and his friends doing nothing. It is clear that he neither untags photographs nor deletes wall posts. It is interesting to me that he chooses not to manipulate his profile page with any lies, or even exaggerations. I imagine that this is because he understands that Facebook provides almost no anonymity, and it is easy to detect deception.
Assignment # 4: Facebook, honestly?
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.
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.
Assignment 4: Travel deception?
For Assignment 4, I chose to complete option one. I chose this because I have too big of a guilty conscience to knowingly tell as big of a lie as a traveling story to my friends, so I decided to test the waters and see how good my lying skills are. I chose to tell a true story over the phone, a richer medium, because I knew that I would sound more comfortable and wouldn’t hesitate while telling the story. According to the feature based model of media and deception, the more recordable a medium is, the less likely users would be willing to speak untruthfully; however, despite being one of the least recorded methods of communication, fewer lies are told over the phone and more are told over email or instant messaging, much more recordable media. I told my friend Jess about a time when I was skiing with my family; my parents, my brother, and I were on the chairlift when we saw a man ski down the mountain straight into a tree, and drop dead (I told her more of the details over the phone). Her first reaction was to ask me if this story was true or not. Although I tried, I could not avoid this question, so I told her it was true. She also asked me why I decided to tell her this story at this particular time, so in order to avoid telling her I was completing a class assignment, I said that I would talk to her later.
I then started to talk to Jess online a few minutes later. I told a false travel story over this lean media because, according to DePaolo and the social distance hypothesis, lying makes people uncomfortable; using a less rich media such as instant messaging allows for a greater social distance between the target, my friend, and the deceiver, myself. I also chose this over emailing because we talk everyday over instant messaging, so it would not be considered out of the ordinary, whereas email would have been.
Because Jess and I are close friends, I told her a story about my trip to the Galapagos (a trip that actually occurred); although the trip to the Galapagos happened, the event that occurred did not. When I asked her if she thought I was lying, she said, without hesitation, yes. She told me that she knew I had been to the Galapagos but that the sea lion almost attacking me and my friend was a little too unrealistic. This was not an easy task to accomplish because I had not fully prepared this story. Because of my lack of preparation, I was planning on working off of Jess’ reactions; however, she did not react or reply in the middle of my story. Therefore, while I was telling the story, it was very asynchronous, much like an email, and decreased my opportunities for unplanned or spontaneous deception. We were also in a non-disturbed setting, which made it a little easier to lie, especially about an event that occurred in the past. I did not have to lie to her about something I was doing at the present time.
Jess relied on our close friendship to know whether or not I was telling the truth. When we talked over the phone, she could sense by how I told the skiing story that it could have been true. I was lively and there was no quiver or hesitation in my voice. However, online, there was hesitation. When I was writing the story, there were many breaks. Even though she knew I had been to the Galapagos, she knew I was lying to her by the way I told the story. I appeared uncomfortable and did not sound like myself while we were instant messaging.
I then started to talk to Jess online a few minutes later. I told a false travel story over this lean media because, according to DePaolo and the social distance hypothesis, lying makes people uncomfortable; using a less rich media such as instant messaging allows for a greater social distance between the target, my friend, and the deceiver, myself. I also chose this over emailing because we talk everyday over instant messaging, so it would not be considered out of the ordinary, whereas email would have been.
Because Jess and I are close friends, I told her a story about my trip to the Galapagos (a trip that actually occurred); although the trip to the Galapagos happened, the event that occurred did not. When I asked her if she thought I was lying, she said, without hesitation, yes. She told me that she knew I had been to the Galapagos but that the sea lion almost attacking me and my friend was a little too unrealistic. This was not an easy task to accomplish because I had not fully prepared this story. Because of my lack of preparation, I was planning on working off of Jess’ reactions; however, she did not react or reply in the middle of my story. Therefore, while I was telling the story, it was very asynchronous, much like an email, and decreased my opportunities for unplanned or spontaneous deception. We were also in a non-disturbed setting, which made it a little easier to lie, especially about an event that occurred in the past. I did not have to lie to her about something I was doing at the present time.
Jess relied on our close friendship to know whether or not I was telling the truth. When we talked over the phone, she could sense by how I told the skiing story that it could have been true. I was lively and there was no quiver or hesitation in my voice. However, online, there was hesitation. When I was writing the story, there were many breaks. Even though she knew I had been to the Galapagos, she knew I was lying to her by the way I told the story. I appeared uncomfortable and did not sound like myself while we were instant messaging.
Lieing gets you nowhere on Facebook
Keeping Facebook honest and truthful provides useful information for the interested. Having a page among the most popular network in college will help create a persona that interests many old and newly acquired friends. Trying to get a good vibe of someone you recently met will often lead you to adding them and checking out their facebook page. Having the ability to scope out their interests will develop a personal connection or provide useful information about who they are or who they want to be.
O’Sullivan developed many ideas throughout his impression management model that can be translated through facebook. After discussing the relative truth behind my friend’s profile, I came to the conclusion that for the majority of the profile, honesty was maintained. The majority of the profile had information that was relevant and up to date with a few extra points added as sarcastic and humorous. They were able to get across the main points that they wanted to while altering a few to make them seem warmer and more childish than reality shows. Using the 5 point scale that Catalina showed us in her lecture, the profile scored quite well. The points are as follows:
Name: 5Activities: 5Networks: 5Sex: 5Interested In: 5Birthday: 5Hometown: 5Contact Info: 5Groups: 4
Music: 5
Favorite Quotes: 2
Interests: 2
During the majority of the profile, scores of 4 and 5 were given. The “2’s” occurred because of the extra sarcasm and youthful demeanor that was trying to be portrayed in these sections. Asking questions about these lower scores, I came to the conclusion that she just wanted to create a sense of ambiguity and see what kind of reaction could come out of her friends. Keeping the profile real is a must in such a public and well known network because of the FtF contact that happens around the campus. People begin to associate how they know people with the status of their friendship on facebook.
Even though the facebook profile that I examined didn’t go into detail about interests, activities and other personal information, knowing the person FtF is no comparison to knowing them through facebook. After studying the profile, I know more about the person in real life because of the lack of information that is displayed on the facebook page. Having the ability to detect where lies are and what is truth has made it possible for people to get to know her through facebook but the majority of her true qualities are revealed with FtF communication.
O’Sullivan developed many ideas throughout his impression management model that can be translated through facebook. After discussing the relative truth behind my friend’s profile, I came to the conclusion that for the majority of the profile, honesty was maintained. The majority of the profile had information that was relevant and up to date with a few extra points added as sarcastic and humorous. They were able to get across the main points that they wanted to while altering a few to make them seem warmer and more childish than reality shows. Using the 5 point scale that Catalina showed us in her lecture, the profile scored quite well. The points are as follows:
Name: 5Activities: 5Networks: 5Sex: 5Interested In: 5Birthday: 5Hometown: 5Contact Info: 5Groups: 4
Music: 5
Favorite Quotes: 2
Interests: 2
During the majority of the profile, scores of 4 and 5 were given. The “2’s” occurred because of the extra sarcasm and youthful demeanor that was trying to be portrayed in these sections. Asking questions about these lower scores, I came to the conclusion that she just wanted to create a sense of ambiguity and see what kind of reaction could come out of her friends. Keeping the profile real is a must in such a public and well known network because of the FtF contact that happens around the campus. People begin to associate how they know people with the status of their friendship on facebook.
Even though the facebook profile that I examined didn’t go into detail about interests, activities and other personal information, knowing the person FtF is no comparison to knowing them through facebook. After studying the profile, I know more about the person in real life because of the lack of information that is displayed on the facebook page. Having the ability to detect where lies are and what is truth has made it possible for people to get to know her through facebook but the majority of her true qualities are revealed with FtF communication.
Assignment 4 (convenient Facebook)
I remember my OL leader told us to “embrace Facebook” way back during freshman year. As a Canadian, I didn’t even know what this thing was but my friends signed me up anyways. Now, Facebook is used internationally, and it’s an extreme oddity for someone not to have an account. My subject for this assignment is a good friend that I’d known since freshman year. He’s also quite honest so I was expecting a similarly truthful Facebook profile. These were his results:
Name: 5
Sex: 5
Interested In: 5
Relationship Status: 5
Looking For: 3
Birthday: 5
Hometown: 5
Political Views: 4
Contact Info (Email, Mobile, Residence): 5
Interests: 2
Favorites: 3
Education Info: 5
Work Info: 5
Profile Photo: 1
Networks: 5
Friends: 3
Groups: 2
He was mostly truthful about the information he provided in his profile. At least his basic information, such as his name, gender and hometown were accurate. His educational and work information were also correct. Furthermore, he was surprisingly honest when it came to his contact information, even his current address. When it came to more personal categories, his lies – or rather – exaggerations were mostly for fun, not to fool others. For instance, he wasn’t “looking for” anything specific, but a friend modified that part and he thought it funny enough to leave it unchanged. He wrote his interests to entertain, not to inform, so most of his activities and favorite things are very random and plain strange. Similarly, his groups were also outrageous-sounding, with a few that he was actually serious about joining. The least honest part was his profile photo, but it was just an icon he made himself, and not to be taken seriously.
Using Donath’s identity-based signals, it is clear that he rarely lied under the assessment signals. With Facebook, it is rather difficult to lie about one’s college, year and email address, though altering one’s name is more simple. Since conventional signals are low cost, he was able to not be truthful about his interests, likes, and other personal information. Despite Facebook being a lean media, these results do not follow the Social Distance Theory, which states that the percentage of lies increase with more distance. His lies are more related to the self-presentation theory, since he wants to appear to be a humorous and fun guy. Therefore, his favorite things contain jokes and ridiculous items, creating a picture of a comical person. Also, his profile photo, the type of relationship he was looking for and his groups all contribute to this desired impression.
These results partially follow the Media Richness Theory, since he chose a lean medium to communicate himself which is the optimal match in this case. After all, he only uses Facebook as a very basic form of interaction; friending only people he knew and updating his information sporadically. The communication is efficient, since there are less cues than a face to face interaction but more than simple emailing or IMing, which suits the needs of some Facebook users.
Comment 1: https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3186874989969223722&postID=2955048155215071736
Comment 2:https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3186874989969223722&postID=1133022364718501909
Name: 5
Sex: 5
Interested In: 5
Relationship Status: 5
Looking For: 3
Birthday: 5
Hometown: 5
Political Views: 4
Contact Info (Email, Mobile, Residence): 5
Interests: 2
Favorites: 3
Education Info: 5
Work Info: 5
Profile Photo: 1
Networks: 5
Friends: 3
Groups: 2
He was mostly truthful about the information he provided in his profile. At least his basic information, such as his name, gender and hometown were accurate. His educational and work information were also correct. Furthermore, he was surprisingly honest when it came to his contact information, even his current address. When it came to more personal categories, his lies – or rather – exaggerations were mostly for fun, not to fool others. For instance, he wasn’t “looking for” anything specific, but a friend modified that part and he thought it funny enough to leave it unchanged. He wrote his interests to entertain, not to inform, so most of his activities and favorite things are very random and plain strange. Similarly, his groups were also outrageous-sounding, with a few that he was actually serious about joining. The least honest part was his profile photo, but it was just an icon he made himself, and not to be taken seriously.
Using Donath’s identity-based signals, it is clear that he rarely lied under the assessment signals. With Facebook, it is rather difficult to lie about one’s college, year and email address, though altering one’s name is more simple. Since conventional signals are low cost, he was able to not be truthful about his interests, likes, and other personal information. Despite Facebook being a lean media, these results do not follow the Social Distance Theory, which states that the percentage of lies increase with more distance. His lies are more related to the self-presentation theory, since he wants to appear to be a humorous and fun guy. Therefore, his favorite things contain jokes and ridiculous items, creating a picture of a comical person. Also, his profile photo, the type of relationship he was looking for and his groups all contribute to this desired impression.
These results partially follow the Media Richness Theory, since he chose a lean medium to communicate himself which is the optimal match in this case. After all, he only uses Facebook as a very basic form of interaction; friending only people he knew and updating his information sporadically. The communication is efficient, since there are less cues than a face to face interaction but more than simple emailing or IMing, which suits the needs of some Facebook users.
Comment 1: https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3186874989969223722&postID=2955048155215071736
Comment 2:https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3186874989969223722&postID=1133022364718501909
Monday, September 17, 2007
Assignment 4-Facebook Exposed!
Few people consider that what is presented in a Facebook profile may not be true. Profiles allow us to formulate opinions on and impressions of the people in whom we are interested. If the information we are presented with is false or incomplete, however, our impression will be as well.
The Facebook profile was divided into fifteen different categories, and Ivy (the student whose Facebook profile was used) was asked to assign each category a number, ranging from one through five, one meaning that the information provided is 0% true, and five meaning that the information is 100% true.
The fifteen categories, and their scores, were networks 4, sex 5, relationship status 5, hometown 5, political views 3, contact info 3, activities 4, interests 2, music 4, television 2, movies 3, books 3, about me 3, education 3, and groups 5. The average score that Ivy assigned to each of the fifteen categories was a 3.6.
Based on what is known about Ivy, her self evaluation is very accurate. There are a number of categories that received either a four or five for accuracy, and some of these categories could be classified as assessment signals. On Facebook in order to join a school network, you must have an e-mail address from that school, which makes networks an assessment signal. It could be argued that on Facebook, even sex is an assessment signal. Sex is something that would be very difficult to lie about on Facebook since such a large amount of information, including pictures, is given to viewers. Many of the people that would be looking at ones profile are also real world friends, who would know whether or not one is female or male. The rest of the categories are conventional signals that could be easily lied about. For example, one could say that they like a particular band under the music category, and even people that know them would have no way of knowing whether or not they actually like that band. These categories, ones where the lies were of smaller magnitudes, were the ones in which lies were most frequent.
If looked at form the feature based approach, one would notice that Facebook contains two features, one always true and one often true, that make it conducive to lying. The feature that is definitely an aspect of Facebook is that it is distributed, and the feature that is mostly true for Facebook is that it is often recordless. For example, if one deletes information from ones profile, it is very difficult to prove that that information was definitely there. Based on these features, one would expect the number of lies told on Facebook to fall somewhere between lies told via texting and lies told face to face.
It is estimated that people lie in about 31% of their everyday social interactions, which encompasses all media. On Facebook alone the frequency of lies, based on the results of the study of Ivy, is close to 30%. A reason, perhaps, as to why lying is so prevalent on Facebook is because it is so very highly distributed. Facebook profile makers are very detached, for the most part, from those viewing their profiles, and thus will be less inhibited when writing their profile. They will add things that will make them seem cooler, because those that will be viewing their profile, for the most part, have very little contact with them and thus have little chance to prove whether the statements made were true or not. Most lies on Facebook are minor, making them even more difficult to detect unless one has very close contact with the creator of the Facebook profile.
Assign 4: Mind over Medium
I might have messed up this week’s assignment, but then again, it provided more insight and support for some theories and ideas.
For my experiment, I emailed a story from a trip I took, and then told another to my girlfriend. The one I emailed was about when the track team went to
She was able to pick out the truth and the lie, but I think it helped a great deal that I told her one was a lie, and the other wasn’t. When I asked her what would have happened if I didn’t tell her, would she have doubted them, and she said no. I think this sheds a great deal of light in that people are open and honest enough to defend the truth bias. It did help however that since she knew one was going to be a lie, she was looking for clues as to tell her which one was lying. She didn’t know at all, admitting that she could not find any external cues to decipher my deception.
All in all, my experiment shed no light on either side of the question. The deciding factor for my girlfriend was not any external cues, nothing in the way I told the story, but of the content of the story. She knew me well enough to know that I would have been frustrated sitting at the pool and would have done that.
Due to what I experienced this weekend in doing this experiment, I think that the medium does not necessarily play a major role in deception detection, but it is still the content of the story that matters the most. This would be a little bit more interesting if it was done with someone telling the same story (a lie) anonymously to a number of people changing between mediums, just to see if it picks up on either hypothesis more, that either vecause of the truth bias, and faulty cues, people are less accurate in FtF or that because of the concentration of resources in CMC people can detect it easier.
Travel- Assignment 4
Assignment #4-
For this assignment I knew I would have to choose someone who wasn’t one of my really good friends, so that they wouldn’t necessarily know if I was lying. I chose to first use a lean channel and send an IM to my roommate from freshman year that I hadn’t caught up with in a while. We talked for a while before I brought up the summer and this awesome trip I went on, the lie. I told her that my sister and I went to Thailand for a week in July and it was amazing. She asked all about it and I think I did a good job describing it as I had time to think about what I was going to say before I responded to her questions. I think that I was successful in deception because there were no distractions of non-verbal cues. We probably talked for five minutes about the trip. She asked basic questions; what did you do there and what was it like there? After telling her the lie I remembered that I had to tell her about a real travel experience as well, so I asked her if she wanted to meet for coffee the next day since we had so much to catch up on. She immediately accepted the invitation and we set a time and place to meet.
The second conversation I used a rich channel of communication, face to face. We met for coffee and again got into talking about our summers as we hadn’t seen each other since last semester. To my dismay, she brought up my trip to Thailand and started asking me more about it. This time it was more difficult to speak about it as I had no time to prepare my answers, and I didn’t want to sound like I was lying. So I quickly changed the subject and brought up my real travel experience; going to California to visit my aunt. I think this definitely made my friend a little bit suspicious because my story about California was not nearly as interesting.
After I finished telling my story I told her about this assignment and after a couple laughs she told me what she thought. She said that she completely believed the Thailand story until we spoke about it in person. “You looked really nervous and our conversation seemed unnatural”, she said when I asked her what her reaction was to our conversation. From this I was able to conclude that deception detection is more difficult in CMC than in FTF. Lying in CMC gives you more time to edit the response and lack the cues and feedback that FTF provides the receiver of the message.
For this assignment I knew I would have to choose someone who wasn’t one of my really good friends, so that they wouldn’t necessarily know if I was lying. I chose to first use a lean channel and send an IM to my roommate from freshman year that I hadn’t caught up with in a while. We talked for a while before I brought up the summer and this awesome trip I went on, the lie. I told her that my sister and I went to Thailand for a week in July and it was amazing. She asked all about it and I think I did a good job describing it as I had time to think about what I was going to say before I responded to her questions. I think that I was successful in deception because there were no distractions of non-verbal cues. We probably talked for five minutes about the trip. She asked basic questions; what did you do there and what was it like there? After telling her the lie I remembered that I had to tell her about a real travel experience as well, so I asked her if she wanted to meet for coffee the next day since we had so much to catch up on. She immediately accepted the invitation and we set a time and place to meet.
The second conversation I used a rich channel of communication, face to face. We met for coffee and again got into talking about our summers as we hadn’t seen each other since last semester. To my dismay, she brought up my trip to Thailand and started asking me more about it. This time it was more difficult to speak about it as I had no time to prepare my answers, and I didn’t want to sound like I was lying. So I quickly changed the subject and brought up my real travel experience; going to California to visit my aunt. I think this definitely made my friend a little bit suspicious because my story about California was not nearly as interesting.
After I finished telling my story I told her about this assignment and after a couple laughs she told me what she thought. She said that she completely believed the Thailand story until we spoke about it in person. “You looked really nervous and our conversation seemed unnatural”, she said when I asked her what her reaction was to our conversation. From this I was able to conclude that deception detection is more difficult in CMC than in FTF. Lying in CMC gives you more time to edit the response and lack the cues and feedback that FTF provides the receiver of the message.
Assignment #4 - Do people lie on Facebook?
In recent years, the Facebook phenomenon has rapidly spread. Suddenly everyone has Facebook profiles, which are no longer only limited to an online space since they are sometimes referred to in the “real” world.
The anatomy of a Facebook profile is composed multitude of conventional and assessment signals that compose a Facebook profile. Most of the assessment signals are near the top of the page, and include the information separated into three categories; basic (i.e. a person’s name, sex, network, hometown, birthday), contact (email, screen name, cell number) and educational. An additional assessment signal is your profile and tagged pictures. These things can be lied about, although people who have had a FtF interaction with person or know him or her well will immediately detect the lie. The conventional signals are the personal information, which include one’s interests, music tastes, etc. which can easily be lied about as even one’s closest friends might not know the true answers. Since it’s not mandatory, people neglect to supply information for some of these categories, which cut down on available assessment signals for others to make use of and add ambiguity to the information not listed.
I asked one of my friends, who is a regular visitor to the website, to analyze his profile using the Catalina’s guidelines. He listed a five for all of his basic, educational and personal information. Knowing him for a few years, I was able to verify that he was being truthful in his profile. However, he admitted that he previously lied once on the website because earlier in the year he conducted an experiment to see how many people relied on the Facebook calendar to remember birthdays. He decided to change the date of his birthday to three months after his actual one. On his fake birthday, he must have received at least thirty posts on his wall with birthday wishes. Because of the Truth Bias, people had no reason to think that he would lie, especially about an assessment signal like his birthday.
Although all of his information was accurate, he clearly used Selective-Self Presentation as expressed by the Hyperpersonal model. He is in an artsy college and therefore tended to emphasize his more avant-garde, indie interests and aspects of his personality. The pictures that he put up also showed him in certain situations, like concerts and dressing in a certain manner to add to his artsy vibe.
My experience with deception on Facebook is supported by the Features-Based Approach. Typically, people don’t lie on their profiles or on wall posts because they are accountable for everything listed, as there is a record of the information. Mostly all of the Facebook communication is done in an asynchronous form, whether it is a wall post or a personal message. Therefore there is no way for the liar to get feedback and adapt the lie, which deters him from lying. Also, he was physically removed from the people looking at his page making extremely easy to lie due to the lack of revealing cues, which corresponds to the Social Distance Theory.
The anatomy of a Facebook profile is composed multitude of conventional and assessment signals that compose a Facebook profile. Most of the assessment signals are near the top of the page, and include the information separated into three categories; basic (i.e. a person’s name, sex, network, hometown, birthday), contact (email, screen name, cell number) and educational. An additional assessment signal is your profile and tagged pictures. These things can be lied about, although people who have had a FtF interaction with person or know him or her well will immediately detect the lie. The conventional signals are the personal information, which include one’s interests, music tastes, etc. which can easily be lied about as even one’s closest friends might not know the true answers. Since it’s not mandatory, people neglect to supply information for some of these categories, which cut down on available assessment signals for others to make use of and add ambiguity to the information not listed.
I asked one of my friends, who is a regular visitor to the website, to analyze his profile using the Catalina’s guidelines. He listed a five for all of his basic, educational and personal information. Knowing him for a few years, I was able to verify that he was being truthful in his profile. However, he admitted that he previously lied once on the website because earlier in the year he conducted an experiment to see how many people relied on the Facebook calendar to remember birthdays. He decided to change the date of his birthday to three months after his actual one. On his fake birthday, he must have received at least thirty posts on his wall with birthday wishes. Because of the Truth Bias, people had no reason to think that he would lie, especially about an assessment signal like his birthday.
Although all of his information was accurate, he clearly used Selective-Self Presentation as expressed by the Hyperpersonal model. He is in an artsy college and therefore tended to emphasize his more avant-garde, indie interests and aspects of his personality. The pictures that he put up also showed him in certain situations, like concerts and dressing in a certain manner to add to his artsy vibe.
My experience with deception on Facebook is supported by the Features-Based Approach. Typically, people don’t lie on their profiles or on wall posts because they are accountable for everything listed, as there is a record of the information. Mostly all of the Facebook communication is done in an asynchronous form, whether it is a wall post or a personal message. Therefore there is no way for the liar to get feedback and adapt the lie, which deters him from lying. Also, he was physically removed from the people looking at his page making extremely easy to lie due to the lack of revealing cues, which corresponds to the Social Distance Theory.
4: Facebook Freedom
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)
Publish Post
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.
Publish Post
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.
assgnmt #4: I talk too much..or too fast..or maybe just stink at lying..
For this homework assignment I chose option one. Luckily, I just went on a trip to China this summer so it was easy to ask one of my friends if I could tell her some stories. Due to my last name, I was assigned to tell the truth in a face to face setting (a rich media) and lie over instant messenger (a lean media). I was happy about this because I never lie, and as we learned in class, there are many cues that occur in face to face situations that let the message receiver know you may be lying. If I had to lie in person I think it would be very obvious. I usually talk very fast, laugh at everything I say that I think is funny, and add a lot of emotion and detail to my stories. If I had to lie, I probably wouldn't be able to be funny, and I would talk much slower as I was trying to figure out how my story should continue. Based on this, I thought I had really good strategies to lie online. I thought she wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between how much I was laughing at my own jokes or smiling at what I was saying. Nor would I have to worry about averting my eyes while trying to think of lies and forget cues such hand motions. Luckily I was able to tell the truth in face to face, and told her a funny story about something that happened when I was on the Great Wall.
When it came to lie online, I told her a story about how I went to a restaurant and the waitress didn't know English very well, and I ended up eating dog when I thought it was duck. However, the fact that I told her some stories in person, and another one over instant messenger made her slightly suspicious from the beginning. I think when I asked her at the end if she knew which story was a lie, she could already tell from my media selection that the instant messenger story was probably not true. The truth bias certainly played a part, because when I was telling her a story face to face there was no reason for her to believe I was lying. She and I are best friends and we trust one another; it would make no sense to lie about an experience I had in China. Also, there were no cues during my face to face interaction to imply I was lying; I talked fast as always, went into a lot of detail, parts of my story interconnected to one another and I was smiling and making eye contact the whole time.
The way I interacted through instant messenger, however, made it obvious to her that I was lying. Not only did my media selection give her a clue, but the story itself was enough for her to know. I tried to use a good strategy and attempted to lie by just typing out exactly what came to mind; I didn’t want to spend too long thinking about it in fear that it would be obvious I was lying (Usually when I type online and have something exciting to say, I’ll type really fast and make lots of spelling errors while I excitedly communicate my story ). I tried to make the story seem humorous, because I knew if I was telling it in person I’d beef up the funny parts to make her laugh, and I tried to use just as many emoticons as I usually would. Despite my efforts, I still typed much slower than I intended because I was busy thinking of how my story could sound realistic. Since I had proper spelling, didn’t seem that excited, and took a while to get the story out, she could tell something was not right. Also, my story was a lot less detailed and I didn’t include as much imagery and descriptions as I usually do face to face. When typing out the lie I didn’t even notice that my story was very linear, with no real purpose or imagery words; for example if it really happened, I would have explained further what it tasted like, or how gross I thought it was, or what the waitress looked like etc.
My friend relied on a few factors to detect my lie. She could tell I used different language and different cues, and the fact that she knows me very well, she was able to tell I was lying. These findings supported Hypothesis 2 that we learned about in class about deception. Hypothesis 2 claims that deception is more easily detected in CMC than FTF because since there is only text, the message receiver can analyze it more and focus on the cues in there, rather than the ones you can easily chance in face to face. Also, the truth bias was reduced because after she heard the story, she knew that if it was true I would have told her face to face as soon as I came back from my trip, not wait until now to tell her via IM. From now on, I’ll just stick to telling my hilarious adventures to my friends face to face :)
Links to my comments:
1. http://comm245purple.blogspot.com/2007/09/4-rich-or-lean-i-am-still-bad-liar.html
2. http://comm245purple.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment4.html
When it came to lie online, I told her a story about how I went to a restaurant and the waitress didn't know English very well, and I ended up eating dog when I thought it was duck. However, the fact that I told her some stories in person, and another one over instant messenger made her slightly suspicious from the beginning. I think when I asked her at the end if she knew which story was a lie, she could already tell from my media selection that the instant messenger story was probably not true. The truth bias certainly played a part, because when I was telling her a story face to face there was no reason for her to believe I was lying. She and I are best friends and we trust one another; it would make no sense to lie about an experience I had in China. Also, there were no cues during my face to face interaction to imply I was lying; I talked fast as always, went into a lot of detail, parts of my story interconnected to one another and I was smiling and making eye contact the whole time.
The way I interacted through instant messenger, however, made it obvious to her that I was lying. Not only did my media selection give her a clue, but the story itself was enough for her to know. I tried to use a good strategy and attempted to lie by just typing out exactly what came to mind; I didn’t want to spend too long thinking about it in fear that it would be obvious I was lying (Usually when I type online and have something exciting to say, I’ll type really fast and make lots of spelling errors while I excitedly communicate my story ). I tried to make the story seem humorous, because I knew if I was telling it in person I’d beef up the funny parts to make her laugh, and I tried to use just as many emoticons as I usually would. Despite my efforts, I still typed much slower than I intended because I was busy thinking of how my story could sound realistic. Since I had proper spelling, didn’t seem that excited, and took a while to get the story out, she could tell something was not right. Also, my story was a lot less detailed and I didn’t include as much imagery and descriptions as I usually do face to face. When typing out the lie I didn’t even notice that my story was very linear, with no real purpose or imagery words; for example if it really happened, I would have explained further what it tasted like, or how gross I thought it was, or what the waitress looked like etc.
My friend relied on a few factors to detect my lie. She could tell I used different language and different cues, and the fact that she knows me very well, she was able to tell I was lying. These findings supported Hypothesis 2 that we learned about in class about deception. Hypothesis 2 claims that deception is more easily detected in CMC than FTF because since there is only text, the message receiver can analyze it more and focus on the cues in there, rather than the ones you can easily chance in face to face. Also, the truth bias was reduced because after she heard the story, she knew that if it was true I would have told her face to face as soon as I came back from my trip, not wait until now to tell her via IM. From now on, I’ll just stick to telling my hilarious adventures to my friends face to face :)
Links to my comments:
1. http://comm245purple.blogspot.com/2007/09/4-rich-or-lean-i-am-still-bad-liar.html
2. http://comm245purple.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment4.html
4: Rich or lean, I am still a bad liar
As I began thinking of the travel story I would create, I remembered how terrible I am at lying. I would have to make up a story through a leaner media, which I thought seemed easier because I would not have to face the person or listen to her response. I would have full control over the story if I sent it through e-mail, and not have to answer any spontaneous questions and risk giving away the truth that this event never actually occurred. I figured that my nonverbal cues are what normally give away my attempts at deceit, yet this experienced illustrated to me that fewer cues would still not make me a great liar.
Links to my comments:
The story that I developed was about forgetting my passport at home on my trip to
When I asked for her opinion, my friend responded that she believed the gist of both stories, but did not exactly understand why I was sending her a random story through e-mail since we would normally discuss recent updates through e-mail rather than past events. Due to this aspect of the relationship between the deceiver (myself) and the receiver (my friend), it was a little more difficult for the lie to be effective. She was already questioning the media I chose to use before she could even concentrate on whether the story itself was true or false. As a result, she was correct in detecting which story was false and which was true.
According to Hancock’s study on motivation and lying over a CMC environment, I would be considered most likely to be effective in deceit. I was highly motivated because it was an assigned project, and given the CMC environment of e-mail, I was more able to edit my message and have the most control over what I wrote and when I sent it. According to the feature-based model of digital deception, one is least likely to use e-mail as a means of deception because it is asynchronous and one of the most recordable means of communication. However, the study did find that in the content of lies, asynchronous modes were most likely to include explanatory lies, which is what this story would be considered. In addition, I definitely found myself making up for the lack of truth with more words and details, as discussed by Zhou in his work on language patterns in deceit. However, my lying was not that successful since my friend was able to see through the wordiness of my story and use of e-mail as a means of telling it. As motivated as I was by the assignment to tell the lie, this still did not seem to be enough to override the ability for my friend’s deception detection.
Links to my comments:
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3186874989969223722&postID=7079150909093156753
Facebook, dost thou deceive me? (Assignment 4, option 2)
Facebook has evolved to be a digital identification card, allowing you to display information about yourself and seek out information about your friends, and even complete strangers. It allows you to give general information about yourself, such as your name, birthday, and hometown, as well as more personal information, such as your interests or your favorite book or music. This however, leaves open a margin for some "creativity," a phenomenon known as digital deception. Although it is harmless for the most part, lying on Facebook profiles is still worthwhile to examine. The first step is to categorize the pieces of information you can display on Facebook into two groups: assessment signals and conventional signals.
Assessment signals are those that are harder to lie about. On Facebook, this includes things such as your network (a college network requires an e-mail address from that university), and depending on what you make your name, your sex and pictures as well. Conventional signals are those which are easier to lie about. This goes for just about everything else on your profile, including your interests, your favorite movies/books/music, and your political and religious views, among many other things. There is also a certain degree of subjectivity as to which is which. For example, I could have a fake picture of myself displayed on my profile, and while a stranger may think it's actually me, one of my best friends would instantly recognize it as fake.
I decided to ask one of my roommates to rate the honesty of each aspect of his Facebook profile, using the same 1 to 5 scale used in Catalina's study. He claimed that all of the aspects of his profile had a rating of 5 except for his relationship status, his birth year, and his hometown, which he rated as 2. When I rated his profile, I agreed with him for everything, except his favorite books and movies. Although he did not lie about anything he liked, he also did not include some of his favorite books and movies there. When I asked him about this, he said he wanted to emphasize the fact that he loved philosophy, which is an interesting case of the Hyperpersonal model in action: he used selective self-presentation to achieve an exaggerated image of himself. He also lied somewhat frequently about basic information, and the magnitude of those lies was staggering (he claimed he was born in 1925, for example). As a matter of fact, the magnitudes of all of his lies were very great: he claimed to be in a relationship when he was not, and he also did not include many of his favorite books and movies that were almost the exact opposite of what he displayed.
After this miniature experiment, I would say the Media Richness Theory completely explains my experience. My friend used a moderately rich media to accomplish a moderately equivocal task (selecting his favorite books to make it seem as though he was more of an intellectual). Additionally, because Facebook is asynchronous, somewhat recordable, and relatively rich, the moderate amount of lying that occurred was to be expected.
Assessment signals are those that are harder to lie about. On Facebook, this includes things such as your network (a college network requires an e-mail address from that university), and depending on what you make your name, your sex and pictures as well. Conventional signals are those which are easier to lie about. This goes for just about everything else on your profile, including your interests, your favorite movies/books/music, and your political and religious views, among many other things. There is also a certain degree of subjectivity as to which is which. For example, I could have a fake picture of myself displayed on my profile, and while a stranger may think it's actually me, one of my best friends would instantly recognize it as fake.
I decided to ask one of my roommates to rate the honesty of each aspect of his Facebook profile, using the same 1 to 5 scale used in Catalina's study. He claimed that all of the aspects of his profile had a rating of 5 except for his relationship status, his birth year, and his hometown, which he rated as 2. When I rated his profile, I agreed with him for everything, except his favorite books and movies. Although he did not lie about anything he liked, he also did not include some of his favorite books and movies there. When I asked him about this, he said he wanted to emphasize the fact that he loved philosophy, which is an interesting case of the Hyperpersonal model in action: he used selective self-presentation to achieve an exaggerated image of himself. He also lied somewhat frequently about basic information, and the magnitude of those lies was staggering (he claimed he was born in 1925, for example). As a matter of fact, the magnitudes of all of his lies were very great: he claimed to be in a relationship when he was not, and he also did not include many of his favorite books and movies that were almost the exact opposite of what he displayed.
After this miniature experiment, I would say the Media Richness Theory completely explains my experience. My friend used a moderately rich media to accomplish a moderately equivocal task (selecting his favorite books to make it seem as though he was more of an intellectual). Additionally, because Facebook is asynchronous, somewhat recordable, and relatively rich, the moderate amount of lying that occurred was to be expected.
4- Facebook: Truthfulness v. Ambiguity
Facebook has become a huge success among college students. It provides web space for personal profiles, allowing individuals to list various details. One problem with facebook is that each person has the ability to lie about certain information, leading many to question users’ credibility. For this assignment, I decided to interview my roommate to ascertain whether or not he was being truthful.
Information I questioned included assessment signals, which have a higher cost to lie (mainly because it is difficult to fake), such as his network, sex, birthday, hometown, religion and email. I also asked him about conventional signals, which have a lower cost (easy to fake), such as activities, interests, personal information (movies, music, etc,…). After the interview, both he and I rated 5’s for every aspect of both signals, indicating that he had not lied at all. However, selective self-presentation was apparent, as he excluded his relationship status (ambiguous meaning) and his high school from his networks (which he told me that he did not want to be affiliated with the school).
After finding that my roommate had not lied on any information in his profile, I believe Media Richness Theory (MRT) best predicts my outcome. MRT argues that there should be an optimal match between the equivocality of a communication task and the richness of the medium. In other words, the ambiguity of communication will differ depending on the richness of the medium in use. Differing with the Cues Filtered-Out theory, MRT asserts that fewer cues in certain cases are better. Although facebook certainly has more cues and more opportunities for feedback than email, its richness is still far less than face-to-face interaction.
With respect to my experience, my roommate took advantage of the fact that facebook offers fewer cues and feedback, but was wary of its recordability. With fewer cues, facebook allows its users to state information that may be understood several ways, such as my roommate stating as his first two activities procrastinating and chilling with friends. Is he really lazy, or does he manage time well and have fun? Additionally, although facebook gives its users many options for giving information, the user does not have to state certain details, which leaves some ambiguity. For example, my roommate has no information on his relationship status (perhaps he wants people to think he is in and out of relationships fast, or maybe he is embarrassed, or perhaps he is not sure?). These ideas fit with the Media Richness Theory, as facebook, with its limited cues and feedback, is not an incredibly rich (but much more so than email) medium. Thus, leaving much room for equivocality. Also, my roommate realized that facebook is very recordable, and consequently was careful to give correct information (hence why all sections of his profile were rated at 5).
With regards to selective self presentation, my findings are also supported by O’Sullivan’s Impression Management Model, in which equivocation is an everyday thing. Additionally, when the locus (or focus) is on the self, people (including my roommate) often prefer a mediated interaction (facebook) to have maximum control over what information is given.
Information I questioned included assessment signals, which have a higher cost to lie (mainly because it is difficult to fake), such as his network, sex, birthday, hometown, religion and email. I also asked him about conventional signals, which have a lower cost (easy to fake), such as activities, interests, personal information (movies, music, etc,…). After the interview, both he and I rated 5’s for every aspect of both signals, indicating that he had not lied at all. However, selective self-presentation was apparent, as he excluded his relationship status (ambiguous meaning) and his high school from his networks (which he told me that he did not want to be affiliated with the school).
After finding that my roommate had not lied on any information in his profile, I believe Media Richness Theory (MRT) best predicts my outcome. MRT argues that there should be an optimal match between the equivocality of a communication task and the richness of the medium. In other words, the ambiguity of communication will differ depending on the richness of the medium in use. Differing with the Cues Filtered-Out theory, MRT asserts that fewer cues in certain cases are better. Although facebook certainly has more cues and more opportunities for feedback than email, its richness is still far less than face-to-face interaction.
With respect to my experience, my roommate took advantage of the fact that facebook offers fewer cues and feedback, but was wary of its recordability. With fewer cues, facebook allows its users to state information that may be understood several ways, such as my roommate stating as his first two activities procrastinating and chilling with friends. Is he really lazy, or does he manage time well and have fun? Additionally, although facebook gives its users many options for giving information, the user does not have to state certain details, which leaves some ambiguity. For example, my roommate has no information on his relationship status (perhaps he wants people to think he is in and out of relationships fast, or maybe he is embarrassed, or perhaps he is not sure?). These ideas fit with the Media Richness Theory, as facebook, with its limited cues and feedback, is not an incredibly rich (but much more so than email) medium. Thus, leaving much room for equivocality. Also, my roommate realized that facebook is very recordable, and consequently was careful to give correct information (hence why all sections of his profile were rated at 5).
With regards to selective self presentation, my findings are also supported by O’Sullivan’s Impression Management Model, in which equivocation is an everyday thing. Additionally, when the locus (or focus) is on the self, people (including my roommate) often prefer a mediated interaction (facebook) to have maximum control over what information is given.
#4 Op. 2: Don't lie on facebook... it's not healthy.
Facebook, for most of my friends at least, is a place to keep in touch with old friends and occasionally meet someone new, so it is important that whatever information in their profile doesn't deviate too much from their personalities in "real life." As opposed to myspace, facebook requires a few assessment signals that can be too revealing to be anonymous. The network access needs valid e-mail addresses, and that confirms both the network and the e-mail addresses, so it's pretty hard to pretend to be from Cornell if you are not. The networks also confirm the information on education. Together these make up the main assessment signals on Facebook.
But on the other hand, an e-mail address doesn't really tell the specifics about the person. The person could be a student or professor or a staff member at Cornell, so there is still some room for lying. The other aspects of the profiles are basically all conventional signals, especially the personal info section. Those represent the attitude expressions (one of the self-presentational tactics), and we have a fair amount of freedom with what we say in there.
As I interviewed a friend about her profile, I was surprised to realize how little both of us lie in our facebook. Facebook would be a lean medium, but contrary to the Social Distance Theory, we do not take advantage of the distance to lie. But it isn't exactly Media Richness Theory either, because the reason we don't lie is not that lies are equivocal and need richer media. Facebook is a unique internet social network where elements of FtF and CMC are combined. It's definitely over a leaner medium (the Internet), but it has pictures of the person and of his/her friends, categorized by their respective networks. There is a strong sense of social association (another self-presentational tactic) here, and we don't want to blur that association by lying to our friends, many of whom we know FtF.
Below is her evaluation of her profile:
Name: 5
Photos: 4
Networks: 3
Sex: 5
Interested In: 5
Relationship Status: 5
Birthday: 5
Hometown: 3
Political Views: 4
Contact Info: 5
Work Info: 3
Causes: 5
Groups: 4
She rated that her profile is fairly accurate, and the aspects that got a "3" were more because she withheld information rather than actively lying. Overall, I believe it's a fair portrait of her, except of course there is information missing here that you would be able to receive in the FtF situation. She also doesn't have a personal info section at all, so this evaluation is not that accurate because it doesn't take into account the information she doesn't reveal in her profile.
Since most of her friends know her FtF, she can't lie about most things. But she also has higher inhibitions for the same reason. Perhaps she doesn't have a person info section precisely because she doesn't want us to know what band she loves the most. Trying to keep the distance, you know.
But on the other hand, an e-mail address doesn't really tell the specifics about the person. The person could be a student or professor or a staff member at Cornell, so there is still some room for lying. The other aspects of the profiles are basically all conventional signals, especially the personal info section. Those represent the attitude expressions (one of the self-presentational tactics), and we have a fair amount of freedom with what we say in there.
As I interviewed a friend about her profile, I was surprised to realize how little both of us lie in our facebook. Facebook would be a lean medium, but contrary to the Social Distance Theory, we do not take advantage of the distance to lie. But it isn't exactly Media Richness Theory either, because the reason we don't lie is not that lies are equivocal and need richer media. Facebook is a unique internet social network where elements of FtF and CMC are combined. It's definitely over a leaner medium (the Internet), but it has pictures of the person and of his/her friends, categorized by their respective networks. There is a strong sense of social association (another self-presentational tactic) here, and we don't want to blur that association by lying to our friends, many of whom we know FtF.
Below is her evaluation of her profile:
Name: 5
Photos: 4
Networks: 3
Sex: 5
Interested In: 5
Relationship Status: 5
Birthday: 5
Hometown: 3
Political Views: 4
Contact Info: 5
Work Info: 3
Causes: 5
Groups: 4
She rated that her profile is fairly accurate, and the aspects that got a "3" were more because she withheld information rather than actively lying. Overall, I believe it's a fair portrait of her, except of course there is information missing here that you would be able to receive in the FtF situation. She also doesn't have a personal info section at all, so this evaluation is not that accurate because it doesn't take into account the information she doesn't reveal in her profile.
Since most of her friends know her FtF, she can't lie about most things. But she also has higher inhibitions for the same reason. Perhaps she doesn't have a person info section precisely because she doesn't want us to know what band she loves the most. Trying to keep the distance, you know.
Assignment #4: Deception on Facebook
The anatomy of a facebook profile consists first of basic information including network, sex, birthday, and hometown. Next, contact information is listed, including email, screen name, and phone number or address. The following section consists of more personal information like activities, interests, TV shoes, books, quotes, and an about me section. There is also an education and work section where you list where you go to school and present and past employers. And the last part of the facebook anatomy includes all of the “extremities” like profile picture, photo albums, wall posts, and other applications. The signals on facebook that I would say are assessment signals include the network because you have to have a valid email address to get into certain networks. I also think that to some degree your pictures are also assessment signals. Although you could theoretically put up a picture of someone who is not you, there are people on facebook who know you personally can already know what you look like; so in this sense it is very difficult to put up pictures that are not you. In accordance with this thought, sex, is also an assessment signal. There are many conventional signals on facebook. Some of them include interests, favorite books TV shows, movies, and quotes. You can adjust these signals at any time and it is very easy to lie about them.
I interviewed my house mate about her profile. Since we are close friends, it was easy to tell what on her facebook pages is not completely accurate. She rated everything that had to deal with assessment a 5. These categories included network, sex, relationship, birthday, hometown, email, etc. The section where her number started to vary and the deception started to increase was when you go to the personal information. She rated her interest, music, and TV shows all a 3 or 2. These signals, which are conventional, were easy for her to lie about. Another aspect of her facebook that had deception was her pictures. There were a lot of pictures of her partying and going out, when in fact she is very much a homebody. And the last part of her facebook profile where there was deception was areas where she had not updated the information, like her work information. She was no longer working at the place her facebook indicated, so in this sense it was not really deception; but on the other hand, if someone had asked her face to face where she worked, she would not say this specific company because that would be a lie.
Looking at the Feature Based Approach, I saw that my findings related to the theory. The lying that occurred on facebook was not excessive, and this can be explained by the fact that it is a synchronous and not recordless. It makes it more difficult to lie on facebook because you do not have people responding to you and giving you feedback immediately, also everything you put on facebook is somewhat recorded, because if you put something on your profile one day, someone can look at it tomorrow and see it again (unless of course you update it within the given amount of time). Another theory that jumped out of me was self presentation. I found that the lies that were made on facebook, were subtle, but were also strategic. They were made in order to portray a certain image of yourself. My friend wanted to look like she was a fun person, so she put a lot of pictures of her with friends and laughing. She also wanted to show that she was eclectic, so she put down that liked all music, when in fact she does not. When we do lie on facebook, we are lying in subtle and strategic way in order to manage our self presentation and depict a certain character.
I interviewed my house mate about her profile. Since we are close friends, it was easy to tell what on her facebook pages is not completely accurate. She rated everything that had to deal with assessment a 5. These categories included network, sex, relationship, birthday, hometown, email, etc. The section where her number started to vary and the deception started to increase was when you go to the personal information. She rated her interest, music, and TV shows all a 3 or 2. These signals, which are conventional, were easy for her to lie about. Another aspect of her facebook that had deception was her pictures. There were a lot of pictures of her partying and going out, when in fact she is very much a homebody. And the last part of her facebook profile where there was deception was areas where she had not updated the information, like her work information. She was no longer working at the place her facebook indicated, so in this sense it was not really deception; but on the other hand, if someone had asked her face to face where she worked, she would not say this specific company because that would be a lie.
Looking at the Feature Based Approach, I saw that my findings related to the theory. The lying that occurred on facebook was not excessive, and this can be explained by the fact that it is a synchronous and not recordless. It makes it more difficult to lie on facebook because you do not have people responding to you and giving you feedback immediately, also everything you put on facebook is somewhat recorded, because if you put something on your profile one day, someone can look at it tomorrow and see it again (unless of course you update it within the given amount of time). Another theory that jumped out of me was self presentation. I found that the lies that were made on facebook, were subtle, but were also strategic. They were made in order to portray a certain image of yourself. My friend wanted to look like she was a fun person, so she put a lot of pictures of her with friends and laughing. She also wanted to show that she was eclectic, so she put down that liked all music, when in fact she does not. When we do lie on facebook, we are lying in subtle and strategic way in order to manage our self presentation and depict a certain character.
#4 -- Facebook and self-presentation
For this assignment I chose option 2. The most obvious difference between a Facebook profile and one found on a dating site is the basic intent of the profile. Thus, Facebook profiles exclude information about height, weight, and other physical descriptions relevant to dating, though it is in many ways still conducive to online romances and related to Catalina’s research. Mostly, however, Facebook is geared toward social networking with friends. It allows for very selective self-presentation (in line with Hyperpersonal Theory), particularly since most fields are not required and one can choose/control what is displayed, what pictures are shown, and who can look at various aspects of the their profile, or any part of their profile at all. In other words, it is editable, asynchronous, and has reduced cues.
The only assessment signals Facebook includes are one’s network, and possibly pictures. Furthermore, this only applies to specific network types (like college networks) that require a valid email address – something quite difficult to fake. Pictures provide visual assessment signals, but only assuming they are actual photos of the person. In this sense, gender is probably also an assessment signal on Facebook. Everything else may be faked, lied about, or altered in some way. This includes name, religion, relationship status, “interested in”, “looking for”, hometown, political views, interests, activities, favorites (music, TV shows, movies, books), “about me”, work and some education information (high school, or major), etc. These are thus conventional signals.
I had my apartment-mate rate the accuracy of her Facebook profile. Her ratings were actually quite honest from what I know about her, and the results were similar to Catalina’s study. She was deceptive in her online profile, but in subtle ways. Her residence was inaccurate for example, but this was actually an inside joke rather than an intentional lie. Her “looking for” field was also inaccurate, but mostly to avoid conflict with her boyfriend. Other than that, her deceptions were related to self-presentational goals (Hyperpersonal Theory). Thus, she added certain interests, movies, TV shows, and books to her profile that were not necessarily her favorites. Perhaps she was attempting appear more versatile, unique, or intellectual – or perhaps more like her “ideal self”.
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Sunday, September 16, 2007
Assignment 4- Honest Facebookers
The anatomy of a Facebook profile has greatly changed even in the past few months. It used to contain only pictures, a list of friends, a brief section for personal information, a place for contact information, and a venue to list favorite activities, interests, music, movies, books, and quotes. There is a place to list your school and major. You can join groups, which will appear on your profile. Of course, the original Facebook profile contains the Wall, where friends can leave messages. In the past few months, the addition of the news feed and now applications, everyone’s profile can be customized to the point that almost no two are the same.
Conventional signals can be shown through different shows of interests. For example, my subject mentions that he enjoys parties and sports in his interests section. He has various applications that feature sports teams, and he is a member of many anti-Yankees/pro-Red Sox groups. These all suggest that he is a very masculine person. He also hints toward his sense of humor through quotes and references to different comedic TV shows and movies. Other conventional signals can be found in photo albums, and any type of group or application one decides to display on his or her profile.His assessment signals show his appearance (in his picture). They also brand him as being in a committed relationship. His profile picture features both him and his girlfriend. His girlfriend is the sole person featured in his “Favorite Peeps” application. She is also the most frequent poster on his wall. Other assessment signals can be found in an e-mail address ending in “@cornell.edu” or a membership in a certain geographical network.
My subject showed very little frequency or magnitude of dishonesty. The lowest he ranked any of his profile features was a “3” on his interests and favorite music. Beside his notation, he wrote “(dated)” because he had not updated his profile in quite some time. He still had some high school activities listed, as well as bands and singers he no longer listens to as frequently. My rankings of accuracy showed no discrepancies with his, and I know my subject on a very intimate level.
His honesty is consistent with Media Richness Theory because revealing his personality on Facebook is a minimally equivocal task, as he has expressed to me before I even began this class. Media Richness Theory states that a person will use less “rich” media (media with fewer cues, little opportunity for feedback, lack of message personalization, and no langage variety) for less equivocal tasks (for example, confirming a lunch date). He is not concerned with being vague or deceptive because his purpose on Facebook is to remain in touch with current friends; his goal is not to make new friends or appear a certain way to acquaintances. However, there are enough cues available on Facebook that he doesn’t appear cold or unapproachable. Since Facebook does allow a certain degree of customization of profiles, it is easy to argue that it is a much richer media than e-mail, text messages, or other asynchronous media. But since he is not attempting to convey himself to unfamiliar parties, he has little occasion to deceive through Facebook. According to the chart comparing frequency of dishonesty through different media, Media Richness Theory predicts lies to happen face to face. In this way, my subject’s profile is consistent with the theory.
Conventional signals can be shown through different shows of interests. For example, my subject mentions that he enjoys parties and sports in his interests section. He has various applications that feature sports teams, and he is a member of many anti-Yankees/pro-Red Sox groups. These all suggest that he is a very masculine person. He also hints toward his sense of humor through quotes and references to different comedic TV shows and movies. Other conventional signals can be found in photo albums, and any type of group or application one decides to display on his or her profile.His assessment signals show his appearance (in his picture). They also brand him as being in a committed relationship. His profile picture features both him and his girlfriend. His girlfriend is the sole person featured in his “Favorite Peeps” application. She is also the most frequent poster on his wall. Other assessment signals can be found in an e-mail address ending in “@cornell.edu” or a membership in a certain geographical network.
My subject showed very little frequency or magnitude of dishonesty. The lowest he ranked any of his profile features was a “3” on his interests and favorite music. Beside his notation, he wrote “(dated)” because he had not updated his profile in quite some time. He still had some high school activities listed, as well as bands and singers he no longer listens to as frequently. My rankings of accuracy showed no discrepancies with his, and I know my subject on a very intimate level.
His honesty is consistent with Media Richness Theory because revealing his personality on Facebook is a minimally equivocal task, as he has expressed to me before I even began this class. Media Richness Theory states that a person will use less “rich” media (media with fewer cues, little opportunity for feedback, lack of message personalization, and no langage variety) for less equivocal tasks (for example, confirming a lunch date). He is not concerned with being vague or deceptive because his purpose on Facebook is to remain in touch with current friends; his goal is not to make new friends or appear a certain way to acquaintances. However, there are enough cues available on Facebook that he doesn’t appear cold or unapproachable. Since Facebook does allow a certain degree of customization of profiles, it is easy to argue that it is a much richer media than e-mail, text messages, or other asynchronous media. But since he is not attempting to convey himself to unfamiliar parties, he has little occasion to deceive through Facebook. According to the chart comparing frequency of dishonesty through different media, Media Richness Theory predicts lies to happen face to face. In this way, my subject’s profile is consistent with the theory.
4, Option 2: Deception
In recent years, Facebook has become extremely popular amongst college students. Almost everyone I know has an account and checks or updates it daily. Facebook allows its members to list information such as their interests, favorite music, favorite TV shows, favorite movies, etc. Each account also has a space for contact information, where people can show their phone numbers, addresses (residence), and screename. Since these characteristics of Facebook can easily be altered by the users, they are called conventional signals. Facebook also contains many assessment signals, which are characteristics that cannot be easily changed once a profile is made. For example, a Facebook profile revolves around what college or university the user attends, so it is near impossible to change the college name and year (unless the member transfers). It would also be hard to change his or her email address, unless the member uses one that differs from the one issued by the college. Altering photographs and wall posts is not an option, unless certain sections are deleted or Photoshop is used to change size or color (perhaps to black and white).
I asked my friend to evaluate her Facebook profile for me, and she did, claiming everything she had to be completely true. I was not surprised by her answers, because she is not the type of girl to go out of her way to try and impress someone by being different then she really is in person. She doesn’t take Facebook too seriously and just listed her interests, music, TV shows and movies so that her friends could see the specifics.
Under the Hyperpersonal Model, my friend has used selective self-presentation by listing things are true about her, but she also selectively chose which bands and movies she wrote down for everyone to see. Since she only chose a few things to list, someone could perceive her as something she is not (as explained by the ‘Over-attribution process’).
Since she does not have a Facebook in order to try and make friends or other possible social scenarios, she does not find it necessary to try and deceive anyone who looks at her page.
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