Facebook profiles offer many layers of self-presentation and further convolute the game of deception. Although deception is defined as a strategic act that is part of an ongoing, interactive communication process by the Interpersonal Deception Theory, Facebook allows users to use deception as a medium for entertainment in addition to strategic deception.
To explore this new form of trivial deception, I turned to my friend Phil’s profile and asked him to rate the accuracy of his basic, personal, educational, and work information. All of the traits rated are conventional, as he provided the information. After reviewing his assessment, we both agreed that most of his information was completely accurate. I used his wall and photos as assessment signals, which his friends created for him. Phil’s friends present him as an outgoing, funny, and likable person. His assessment signals match his conventional signals by reinforcing his laid back interests in partying, sports, and playing the guitar.
Despite a strong congruence in Phil’s assessment and conventional signals, there were a few blatant lies in his conventional profile. Although Cornell is known for offering many majors, we both knew Beerpong Physics and Sexual Escapades were not his real majors. He also mentioned that he slept in the nude and worked at a money laundering pastry shop.
Although Phil lied through conventional signals, he did not intend to mislead anyone. His conventional signals help break the ice of mediated, online communication. He told me that its funny to see Beerpong Physics in a field that the rest of the world takes seriously; it reveals a strong sense of humor. He also told me he’s not ashamed of his major nor is trying to hide it; he just chose to represent himself this way for a good laugh. His behavior models a modified Social Distance Theory in that people are more prone to lie online over face to face. Phil lied to compensate for the mediated nature of Facebook profiles and add humor to his impersonal representation.
While Phil doesn’t believe he lied, he still misrepresented certain aspects of his profile to accomplish a goal. In traditional deception the goal is malignant, but in Phil’s case he utilized deception to achieve humor. Both forms of deception rely on conventional signals and illustrate how signal manipulation can affect representation in different contexts. Beerpong Physics and Sexual Escapades is not an isolated case. Many girls and a few boys list themselves as in relationships with other people of the same sex, despite the fact they are clearly heterosexual. These instances are analogous to Phil’s use of deception as a way to break the ice and utilize conventional signal misrepresentation in a novel, humorous way.
The variety in which people use deception make it difficult to classify a lie, which depends on its social context. This variability may help explain the inconsistencies between the Media Richness Theory and Social Distance Theory. Humorous deception follows the Social Distance Theory in that deception is utilized more in mediated environments to add humor. However, the Media Richness Theory focuses more on serious lies that are intended to deceive rather than placate, and should take place in a face to face medium. A stricter definition of deception may help bridge the gap in the theories, as deception occurs in many forms for unpredictable purposes.
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Hey Steve,
I really enjoyed reading your post – it contains some good analysis and some good humor. I particularly liked how you described your impression of Phil based on his wall messages and photos. I think it is interesting how most people on Facebook proudly display their personal conversations with their friends so that others might check out their profile and see how likeable and outgoing they are based on these messages. Of course, we are quick to delete a message from our wall when someone says something not very nice to us, so that nobody will see this on our profile and think something bad about us, yet we are obviously trying to manage the impression we make on others about us through our profile – or perhaps we are using this impression management to try to increase our attractiveness, according to Goffman and Baumeister’s theory of Self Presentation Goals. It is interesting how we so blatantly like showing off our personal conversations to other people, and we are almost all guilty of this, yet we continue to keep our wall visible to others and justify this decision by perhaps acknowledging that it is the default setting, so we don’t feel like actively disabling it, or that maybe we superficially believe that nobody really reads our wall messages, so it doesn’t really matter whether they are there or not. Anyway, great post and it is an interesting topic you brought up.
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