“Sickkk views of the ocean here in Florida! Love my Spring Break tradition 💓 #BLESSED.”
“Literally NEVER gonna leave this place, love me some California sunshine! #bronzedgoddess. 😎”
You scroll through your news feed, seeing highlights from
close friends and acquaintances that are spending time away on Spring Break,
while you sit at home on your couch after a full day at work, your dog near
your lap.
“What’s on your mind?”
Facebook asks you.
What do you do? Do you post anything? Research says you likely
won’t. At least not unless it’s a highlight for you. Social Media timelines are
built on highlights; we post the things that we want other people to see. Even
if we post things of ranging importance in our lives, the truth of the matter
is this: your entire life isn’t online. That means that as you perceive the
lives around you, you are not only being deceived, but you are also deceiving others.
That’s right! You’re a liar.
But guess what? It gets worse. Or better, but that’s up to
you.
By selectively choosing what you post online, you are creating
a persona, and when people watch, you go through a fun thing called “identity
shift”. That means, you start committing in real life to the profile you’ve created
online. And, you interact with others online in accordance with your online
profile. So, if your profile is a stretch from who you actually are, you might
be adapting to your profile in real life. You aren’t just changing your profile
anymore; your profile starts changing YOU.
Likely, if you decide to post, you’ll be keeping track of
your audience who sees. Burrow and Rainone (2017) conducted a study to look
closely at “liking” posts on Facebook and found that the number of “likes” one
receives on a post actually largely affects your self-esteem; which also means
the more likes you get, the more likely you are to continue posting things like
it. Who doesn’t like to receive the positive affirmation?
But this means that not only are you selective with what you
post, but also more willing to manipulate the information you post. Like photo
editing, anyone? That’s right, that counts. But rather than letting it get you
down, make sure you are using for safety, and a general awareness that what you
see online isn’t what it seems. For example, being catfished isn’t fun; be wary
of profiles that seem suspicious.
I’ll leave you with this, to get you thinking: how are you deceiving
your online community?
I love the way you examined this topic! You discussed it in a real and non-sugar coated way that i think a lot of people need to hear. Only putting up the highlights of our life and editing our online persona to make things seem better then they are, and to only reflect the positive, causes us to reflexively be better at it. We evolve and learn how to best play our audiences to get the most likes/views out of them. It seems like no matter how little you interact with social media you are feeding into the deception and spiral of highlights, and other than acknowledging it and trying to be better i'm not sure what can be done.
ReplyDeleteI feel attacked by being called a liar. Who I am on social media is my business and I don't feel as though I should be shamed by keeping my life private and unexposed to the rest of the world. What makes someone a liar? When their about me section on Facebook says single when you've been in a real world relationship for three years? I don't think that is lying. What is lying is using social media to cheat. Think of make up and how many people says that those who wear it are just lying to others and to themselves. That directly correlates with social media, with a film over our face, not showing the natural us, but never would I tell someone that they are a liar for wearing make-up. People are allowed to be who they want to be and that is up to them, not the viewers at home.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you set up this topic and the post! It was very fun to read! The concept of "identity shift" is really intriguing and scary to me. I never think that I or someone I know would change who they are based off of their social media, but it is probably way more common than I am aware of - scary!
ReplyDeleteThis post has really got me thinking what I’m doing to deceive others. The instant gratification of getting a bunch of likes on posts has caused us to continuously seek acceptance and assurance from people we don’t even really know! I wonder why we feel the need to only show the highlights of our lives online when we all know it’s not the full picture.
ReplyDelete