Facebook Profiles

The New Scientist has confirmed for me what I think most of us already know about Facebook profiles. It's a commonly held perception that your online profile is merely an idealised, contrived and contorted, public persona; something that you construct to present what you feel to be your best, idealised self. There are a whole range of ways to do this: delete untoward photographs of yourself; join specific societies or forums; become 'fans' of certain things; list books you feel you should have read; copy quotes that shed light on who you are, and all the rest of it. The incorrect conclusion then follows. It's claimed that it's impossible, therefore, to tell who the real person is underneath all the tripe that people bring to the front of their profiles. Anyone who's browsed through their friends' profile pages, and delved into their friends' friends profiles will probably understand that you can actually determine quite a lot about someone's personality by reading between the lines of what's in front of you. How many 'friends' do they have? How many photos of themselves are there? What's the ratio? How many photo albums have they uploaded online? What's their profile picture like? Do they disclose their marital status? Do they display their political or religious views? How many groups have they joined? How many films and musical artists have they listed? What quotes do they choose, if any? Eminem, Lance Armstrong, or Dostoyevsky? There are plenty of others. If you know how to read these details, Facebook profiles are far more illuminating than many of its users seem to realise.