Assignment 4 Option 2: Facebook Friend

The online social networking website, Facebook, has become the most popular of its kind. Perhaps the reason for Facebook’s popularity is its ability to allow its users to employ several self-presentational tactics of impression management. Facebook profiles contain six main sections of information: basic, contact, personal, education, work, and pictures. A person can choose which of these categories to fill out and can select exactly what they want to say in the category.
In the personal information section they can use the self-presentational tactic of self-description and describe themselves in a way that conveys their desired impression by typing in their favorite movies, music, TV shows, and books. These categories give Donath’s conventional signals (displays of info. that are only conventionally associated with a person’s characteristics). The information in these categories is not necessarily true but can’t really be proven false based solely upon the profile. The photo application on Facebook can also give conventional signals. People can choose to only show pictures that display certain social association, publicly linking themselves to specific groups of people. Although Facebook allows for mostly conventional signals, there are a few assessment signals that are displayed on a person’s profile. For instance, in order to belong to a Facebook college network, you must have an email address from that college. The contact and education information sections allow for such assessment signals and are directly related to the person’s characteristics. They can be proven true.
While I was chatting online with my friend from high school I decided to ask her about her facebook profile. In the basic, contact, education, and work categories she gave herself all 5’s and said this information was completely accurate. In the personal information category she gave herself 4’s for favorite movies, books, TV shows, and music. She said that the information she put on her profile in this section was indeed accurate but was not a conclusive list. She had several other favorites that she didn’t choose to display and chose about three selections for each category.
I have been close friends with this girl for about six years and I know her very well. When I looked at her profile after speaking with her I found that her descriptions were indeed true. The favorites in her personal section were accurate and there only were about 3-4 selections made for each category. However, I found the selections she made to be very interesting. For example, in her favorite music category she chose 4 music artists/bands that portray her in an extremely laid-back and “chill” way (Jack Johnson, John Mayer, Coldplay, and Joshua Radin). I know for a fact that my friend also loves punk-rock music and pop but she chose to display four of her favorite alternative groups.
Overall, my friends lies were not frequent and were subtle. In fact, my friend wasn’t very deceptive but merely selectively self-presenting. This makes sense because she is a very honest and confident girl. Although my friend was accurate in her facebook profile, this assignment has made me see how easy it is to be deceptive in conventional signals and hard to be deceptive in assessment signals.