Assignment 2: Twitterific

When I started this assignment I wanted to find a subject that I had absolutely zero pre-conceived notions about. This was hard because most online psychological spaces already have stereotypes attached to them (if not widely held, then at least in my own head) so I looked to a relatively new online space called Twitter. A mini-blog on steroids might be an appropriate description of what Twitter is; more commonly it’s referred to as simply mini-blogging, or an ongoing stream of short status updates that someone posts on their simplistic personal page via a number of possible avenues including SMS text messaging, instant messaging, Facebook, or posting directly on the Twitter website. As yet, Twitter does not have a stereotypical audience (at least in my mind) so I was not filled with any expectations of what kind of people I might find. Twitter’s homepage shows a stream of the latest updated streams, so I simply chose one of those users and read every post in that user’s stream on the top page (approximately 20 posts).

Right off the bat when I loaded this user’s page I got a good amount of information about him including his name (I won’t publish his entire name), his location (Santa Monica, CA), and a picture of him. The combination of his name and his picture gave me a good amount of information including his sex, race and approximate age; he is a Caucasian male that I’d estimate to be in his mid-to-late 20’s. Beyond that I took from his name that he was of Dutch ancestry because his last name started with the prefix “Van.” There was also a link to a myspace page, but I chose not to visit it in order to keep my impressions focused on his Twitter stream.

Most of the posts in his stream fall into the following categories: Three posts related to technology, three posts related to sports, three posts proposing times and locations of get-togethers, three posts related to pubs/bars/drinks and two posts about concerts. Besides the information I’ve already gotten from the page (approximate age, sex, location, race), I can now begin to analyze him in terms of the Big 5 Traits. He doesn’t seem very neurotic, but rather very much down to earth. He is very extraverted and open, which I can tell by the social nature of a number of his posts, and the fact that he is willing to make them public. I cannot quite judge his agreeableness because I have not witnessed enough interaction with other people, but I would tend to use the over-attribution process to apply my favorable attitude towards him and assume that he is agreeable. Finally, I cannot comment on his conscientiousness because I do not see any moral dilemmas in his posts. I would also categorize him overall as a pretty warm person, as none of his posts are negative in any way.

I analyzed his posts further and came to conclusions about him, continuing to use the over-attribution process of the Hyperpersonal model. I take his overall cheerful attitude as almost too cheerful, combined with a few slightly effeminate remarks, and get the impression that he is a very effeminate person. However I then remembered his sports and technology remarks and quickly dismissed the idea that he is an overly effeminate male. One of his posts pertained to a new computer and another to driving a convertible, which led me to infer that he had a healthy income source. I also would characterize him with a healthy social life and a healthy interest in music. Overall the amount of information that he gave in twenty sentences led me to draw a huge number of conclusions, all using the Hyperpersonal model, and I ultimately took the eclectic collection of posts and conclude that he is a pretty average and well-rounded person. (Not the result I expected from this exercise)