Take a look at your profile. Think about the information you wish to portray to your network of friends on Facebook. What does this tell us about you? Does this help us to understand who you are? Why or why not?
Clearly you make decisions about what to post in your profile about yourself. Besides issues of privacy, how do you decide what to include? What to exclude?
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When I first got a facebook I was extremely nervous about other people seeing my information. For this reason I put no information up at all. Over time though I started to put more and more up. I don't think I have that much information about myself compared to other people. I do not have my hometown even though I have my high school which could help someone find my hometown if they really wanted to. I have my birthday, but not the year. Now that I think about it I have no clue why I do not have my birthday year posted, I don't really care if people know how old I am. In terms of personal information posted I filled out some of the categories, but I barley ever update them or look at them. I feel like people used to look at them a lot more in the old facebook when it was a part of the main page that you saw. For a while I tried to restrict what i put on facebook because I did not want my family to know that I had a facebook or see what I had on it. My parents thought it was just a waste of time and thought I spent enough time on Aim and didn't anything else to waste time on. My older brother is way freaked out about security and has no pictures or information about himself on his facebook. Once my family found out about my facebook, a story for another time, I decided to put more information up on it because there was no point trying to hide anymore. How i decide if something is reasonable to be on my facebook is that I only put up stuff that I would tell someone after meeting them once. If it is something like my favorite movie or book that i might discuss with someone at a party than I think it is "facebook safe", but if it is something that I only tell my closest friends than it has no place on my facebook.
I see how many of my friends put thier real phone number up. I know that is something I would never do. I also make sure that I am never seen with any type of drink in my hand. Not that I do drink but I see so many people that put pictures up with drinks in thier hand or seen in a bar. Somethings I choose not to update; like the classes I take or clubs Im in. I know its networking but I dotn wont every one to know everything that im doing all the time. when i first made a profile i had my really adress on line. know i make sure not to do that. I can think of plenty of people that i dont wantthem to know where i leave and how to get in contact with me other then sending emails.I have where I went to high school what year i graduated adn what year i will graduate now as well as what school I go to. aslo both my school email and a junk email. ONly reason I have my birthday up is so people can with me a happy B-day. but i with they would called and not put it on facebook. I have a few clubs and intrest up but I havent looked at it in so long that I forgot what i was apart of and when I looked it really hasnt changed much. I dont know what people might think of it if they read it at all. Guess people might think that I am boring...
The information does not portray me appropriately to the general audience of Facebook at all. The mentality I have with my information is that if my Facebook friend is my friend in real life, they would understand my sense of humor. I would say that all of my content is sarcastic or rooted from an inside joke. I am pretty minimal with my information. This is probably because I really only use Facebook for a select few people.
When I got facebook, I remember refusing to post any pictures of myself, and also not allowing my friends to tag pictures of me. I have obviously come around. I still have made it so my profile is private, and only friends can view my page, so I feel a lot more comfortable knowing that the only people who can view my contact information are people I have willingly friended. On my info page, I have put my cell phone #, dorm, and pretty much everything needed for anyone to get ahold of me that needs to. As far as interests, I put a little in each category, but I like the idea of people really getting to know me through conversation, not by simply skimming my profile. I have a lot of family members for friends, and rather than put them on a limited list, so that they can't see my wall or pictures, I just make sure that there isn't any content that I wouldn't want them to know about me. (No pictures of me with a cigarette in my hand, namely)I don't have a lot of friends who bring cameras with to parties or the bar, because we all respect one another and don't want incriminating pictures of ourselves on facebook any more than we want pictures of them.
My facebook profile is rather bare bones. I put only the barest of information there such as name and like birthday. I haven't even updated my interests and such in at least 3-4 or years. After the initial interest with setting up my facebook account I didn't feel like keeping it up to date or changing anything. Thus most of my information is pretty inaccurate or not even there. I don't know what exactly that says about me, I'm lazy?
posting soon...just got done with work meetings all day. Where's the google group :P!?
The information I put up on Facebook is mostly superficial information that I would want people who are 'weak ties' to know about me. They are interests and likes of mine. If there is a chance I can strengthen a bond with someone because we can see we have similiar interests via a social network, then putting up the information is worth it. As far as privacy goes, I have it set so only people I friend can see it, and you can even customize your information for certain people. I don't care if people can see my email address or phone number. If they want to contact me, so be it, I have nothing to hide. Let's say by some rare chance, 20 years from now, Facebook sells are our information and my phone number gets out to telemarketer companies. My cell is on a government no-call list, so if they call me, I can report them and they will have to pay thousands of dollars in fines.
From my profile, someone can probably deduce I am a social whore...maybe not, but I like to think that I am. As far as understanding who we are from the information on our profiles, I think it gives an idea of our interests and what type of person we are. It's a sample for people to want to get to know us better if they don't already. I like to fill out the information in depth sometimes, it's a means to procrastinate and I don't care what my friends think or see on my profile. I try to update it, but unfortunately I only get to that around finals it seems...
This is kind of a funny topic since I just had to redo the information page on my profile due to some interesting alterations made by my friends. At first I left up most of what my friends put that wasn't horribly offensive or creepy but the other day this girl who I just met(and seemingly felt like learning a little bit more about me/creeping) commented on some of my interests* and activites* she found a little troubling.
But as I started to redo my info I came across the decision of what I should put. Not really in the sense of how much information but what. During this, I decided that if a person was to look at my profile I don't think that they'd be really looking for what I did, what I read, or where I'm from but more so a general sense of who I am . Looking over a few of my friends profile led me to the same conclusion. People that just stated facts seemed pretty flat and lacking personality even if that did not truly reflect them. While profiles that used more humor and originality even if they did not detail important facets of their life presented a deeper sense of personality.
So if you look at my profile you won't really get a great view of my activities based on what I've written but my interests, quotes, favorite music, and lack of TV shows do provide a relatively clear picture of who I am both explicitly and implicitly.
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