THE FACEBOOK DILEMA: PERSONAL IDENTITY AND THE INFORMATION/PRIVACYPARADOX
Since my website has a lot of sections about food, I thought it would be nice to stray away from this topic and talk about a something that has interested me lately. When I first started to use Facebook it was like I had just been born into a new world. I was introduced to a virtual world that allowed me to communicate and make connections behind the comfort of my own computer. And, I am sure many of my peers feel the same way.
But, we live in a society where there are two different selves, our virtual self and our realistic self. But, many are saying that Facebook causes people, especially teens and young adults, to have an identity crisis. In other words, people are worrying that self identity is now changing due to our online profiles. However, this is not actually the case. What is causing these seeming differences between the virtual and the realistic identities is how Facebook is set up. The problem with Facebook is that there is an unsolvable paradox between how much information is put out and how much privacy there is.
To test whether a person’s Facebook profile is an actual reflection of an individual’s real personality a study was performed by a German Scientist, Dr. Mitja D. Back. He selected a group of 200 college students and administered two personality tests, one to rate their actual characteristics and the other to rate how they would ideally be pictured. But to make sure the testing group did not fabricate the results he cross-referenced the results with four close friends of a testing subject. Finally, with the help of an independent team, he tried to see if the Facebook profiles matched better with ideal personalities or the actual personalities. Low and behold a persons Facebook profile better reflected a person’s actual personality than how they would ideally want to be pictured. He then concluded that meeting a person on Facebook is a good indicator of their actual personality.
But even though individual Facebook profiles are consistent with their owners, Facebook’s structure is causing perceived differences in profiles. A prime example of how this is affecting the user is through relationships. Are you Facebook official yet? This is something that is now common to ask couples. But not so long ago it was uncommon to announce to the world that two people were dating. Facebook is changing that. But would that really have such a huge impact on a relationship? A professor at Indiana University concluded from a lot of testimony from her students that, “Facebook could be a threat to [someone’s] romantic relationship.” She claims that Facebook has the ability to transform users into “anxious, jealous, and monitoring [people] that they did not want to be… Facebook was constantly providing information about their identity and others’ identity that they believed should be a basis for relationships.” This is a pretty huge accusation if you ask me, but this does seem logical. How Facebook works is by providing so much information: pictures, thoughts, amount friends, networks, interests, but we are always searching for more and more knowledge. For example the professor talks about a girl whose boyfriend was very social and usually other girls would ask to take pictures with him. The girl would just stare at these photos on Facebook trying to guess what is happening and at the same time building up tension and jealousy. Even though her boyfriend was just being himself and acting social, the pictures show that he hangs out girls other than his girlfriend. Sometimes what a photo is implying is completely different from what is actually happening.
Ultimately what Facebook actually does is display a lot of information: everyone status’s, relationship status, pictures. However, this information is not enough and this forces people to dig for more, to try and find more and more information. And with enough persistence, that is possible. Additionally, this is exactly the thing that makes Facebook so interesting but so controversial at the same time. There is a paradox that develops on the website, the constant stimulation of information combined with the need for privacy.
But, we live in a society where there are two different selves, our virtual self and our realistic self. But, many are saying that Facebook causes people, especially teens and young adults, to have an identity crisis. In other words, people are worrying that self identity is now changing due to our online profiles. However, this is not actually the case. What is causing these seeming differences between the virtual and the realistic identities is how Facebook is set up. The problem with Facebook is that there is an unsolvable paradox between how much information is put out and how much privacy there is.
To test whether a person’s Facebook profile is an actual reflection of an individual’s real personality a study was performed by a German Scientist, Dr. Mitja D. Back. He selected a group of 200 college students and administered two personality tests, one to rate their actual characteristics and the other to rate how they would ideally be pictured. But to make sure the testing group did not fabricate the results he cross-referenced the results with four close friends of a testing subject. Finally, with the help of an independent team, he tried to see if the Facebook profiles matched better with ideal personalities or the actual personalities. Low and behold a persons Facebook profile better reflected a person’s actual personality than how they would ideally want to be pictured. He then concluded that meeting a person on Facebook is a good indicator of their actual personality.
But even though individual Facebook profiles are consistent with their owners, Facebook’s structure is causing perceived differences in profiles. A prime example of how this is affecting the user is through relationships. Are you Facebook official yet? This is something that is now common to ask couples. But not so long ago it was uncommon to announce to the world that two people were dating. Facebook is changing that. But would that really have such a huge impact on a relationship? A professor at Indiana University concluded from a lot of testimony from her students that, “Facebook could be a threat to [someone’s] romantic relationship.” She claims that Facebook has the ability to transform users into “anxious, jealous, and monitoring [people] that they did not want to be… Facebook was constantly providing information about their identity and others’ identity that they believed should be a basis for relationships.” This is a pretty huge accusation if you ask me, but this does seem logical. How Facebook works is by providing so much information: pictures, thoughts, amount friends, networks, interests, but we are always searching for more and more knowledge. For example the professor talks about a girl whose boyfriend was very social and usually other girls would ask to take pictures with him. The girl would just stare at these photos on Facebook trying to guess what is happening and at the same time building up tension and jealousy. Even though her boyfriend was just being himself and acting social, the pictures show that he hangs out girls other than his girlfriend. Sometimes what a photo is implying is completely different from what is actually happening.
Ultimately what Facebook actually does is display a lot of information: everyone status’s, relationship status, pictures. However, this information is not enough and this forces people to dig for more, to try and find more and more information. And with enough persistence, that is possible. Additionally, this is exactly the thing that makes Facebook so interesting but so controversial at the same time. There is a paradox that develops on the website, the constant stimulation of information combined with the need for privacy.