Facebook or Myspace

I have facebook and myspace. I had a xanga and a black planet before that. I reveal pretty much all the same things in my profiles. I say my name, nickname, age, where I am from, birthday, hobbies, likes, diskikes, etc. I post pictures a lot. Myspace lets you even decorate your profile in a personal way through background themes and other codes. Sites like these make it easy for people to hide who they really are. “CMC contexts, like no other person-to-person media before them, offer communicators the ability to manipulate their personal identities in ways that call into question assumptions about what is possible and what is appropriate in the presentation of self” (Wood and Smith p. 51). This was dicussed in past discussions. People may distort their identity. I reveal the whole truth. I tell you all the facts I mentioned before, as well as express my personality through the design of my page. I like using hello kitty and Nicki Minaj on my page, as well as fashion backgrounds and other things. As discussed in the lecture, "Identity is a complex personal and social construct, consisting in part of who we think ourselves to be, how we wish others to perceive us, and how they actually perceive us. Self-presentation is the process of setting forth an image we want others to perceive." Basically we manipulate the medium of the internet in order to express ourselves in such a way that others perceive us in the way we want them to. This how people create alternate identities. I am careful not to reveal too much. People should only know so much about you through the internet. This relates to the Social Presence theory. As discussed in lecture, "Social presence is the degree to which we as individuals perceive another as a real person and any interaction between the two us as a relationship. Social presence theory suggests that different media convey different degrees of perceived substance to an interaction. The degree of the connection is based on the amount of nonverbal information available to the receiver through any particular channel." These sites even warn you when you about revealing too persoanl information and warns yoou not to say or post certain things. In anonymous communication it is important to remember you do not necessariy know everyone that finds you on the internet. It may be convenient to communicate with your family and friends, but others see you as well. Anonymous communication also allows for people to try to contact you and possibly say false things to you to mislead you. Be careful what you say and do on the internet. Also in lecture it was said that, "We choose the channel of communication based on our perceptions of what will be the most successful for the desired outcome of the communication. So, if we just want to touch base with someone, email is appropriate. However, if we want a raise, email is probably not the way to go." This relates back to the idea I spoke about in a previous blog about sites like facebook being a more informal form of communication. This type of communication should be used depending on what content you are communicating about. Personally I feel these sites are informal and a means of social communicatioin rather than formal business. But there has also been an issue about jobs logging on to these sites and looking at their potential employees' pages. I do not think employers should look at sites that are techinically social sites and are not meant to be used to judge a person. For that matter I think it would be wise to be careful what you post on your pages folks.