I chose to investigate Facebook’s messaging as my psychological place. Similar to e-mail, messages on Facebook are private (for the recipient’s eyes only) and can be sent to someone even if they have not been identified as your friend on Facebook. Yet, what separates Facebook messaging from e-mail is the option to view the sender’s profile (if access has not been restricted) or at least their profile picture (if they have one uploaded). I selected Facebook messaging because it appears to be the most popular way to get to know someone on Facebook; therefore, it is perfect for my query on “first impressions” online.
I must admit that I do not use Facebook very often for a variety of reasons, so my Inbox for messages has reached 115 unread messages. As I filtered through some of my messages, I came across three individuals who I do not know. Before I get into my initial impressions of these individuals, let me tell you more about my Facebook profile; it is very basic. My profile picture is of my sister and me, in our bathing suits, smiling gleefully at the camera with the scenery from the cruise’s deck behind us. As a heterosexual, I have indicted such on my profile by entering that I am interested in “Men” and I am a “Female.” Although, I have a boyfriend I have chosen to keep that information off of my profile. The rest of my profile is simple: a little bit of personal info, networked with Cornell University and Boston, hometown, and no fancy application cluttering up the page.
The first message I came across was from Billy Bob*, there was no subject and the message read: “hey whats up cutie how are you doing??” Instantly, I believed that this man is trying to hit on my through Facebook, since he was of the opposite sex and his message was short and lacking clarification. Also, the use of the word “cutie” made it seem that he had a warm personality, but in this case his “warm personality” was taken as being flirtatious. Additionally, one might infer that he is less serious or has a warmer personality because of his use of all lower-case letters, instead of the formality of proper punctuation; whereas, I am less enamored by his syntax and feel that it shows sloppiness and if he is trying to hit on me it seems sleazy. I try to find out more information about the mystery man, anything that will confirm or nullify my initial impression, by clicking on his picture but I had a limited view of his profile. All I can see is a small picture of him holding a baby; could that be his own child? He has UNC Charlotte Alum and Charlotte, NC listed as his networks. Since he is an alum, I can assume that he is older than me. I take a moment to think if I know of anyone from UNC, or if he could possibly be a mutual friend. After the little bit of research that I could muster on this man, I categorized him as a sleazy online guy who tries to “get to know girls better” online. So, I deleted his message.
Joe Bob’s message was directly after Billy Bob’s. He did not have a subject either but his message read: “Hey, how are you doing?” He had proper capitalization and punctuation; yet, my impression of him was just as vague as his message. His personality seemed warm enough, simply because he contacted a stranger just to talk. But I am unsure about anything else about him. His profile is completely blocked and his profile picture is a question mark. Either this guy is highly sketchy or he does not want to be too public with his Facebook information, which I could admire. Also, it could be a way of selective self-presentation; perhaps Joe Bob knows that he is not attractive so he hides his picture and blocks his profile so that we can communicate without those visual cues, which will work to his advantage if he has a good personality. I am unsure as to whether he is looking for a “good time” or interested in making a friend. Since I wish to know more about him, I sent him a response message inquiring more about him.
The last message, I would like to analyze is a message I received from a prospective Cornell Student whose message was titled “Cornell.” He wrote: “Wassup…I’m trying to decide between Cornell and UVa and my question is what is the African American population on campus like?” His conversational writing gave me the impression of a warm personality. The fact that he had a stated question and purpose for his message made me assume that he was a more respectable person; not sleazy or sketchy. He had open access to his profile, so I was able to learn more about him; such as his high school and the fact that he ran cross country for his track team. I felt that he was the over-achiever type (since he is a prospective Cornell student), he has initiative (he contacted me about the school), and he is most likely a partier or will be if he comes to Cornell and runs track. I responded to his e-mail, hoping that my input would be helpful.
Overall, my impressions fell in line with the Hyperpersonal theory, especially the over-attribution aspect. According to Spears and Lea, the “visual anonymity and physical isolation” online causes people to rely on the few social cues available. Based on these cues, people will create a more “stereotyped and exaggerated representation of their partner.” With the last message, I inferred a lot of information about his personality based on the way that he wrote and predicted his social life based solely on the fact that he does track. Due to the lack of information from the first man I produced a more intense and exaggerated negative impression of him, then if I had met him in person, perhaps. Since I had very little information, I had to base my understanding of him on his picture, location, age, and the way he wrote. With Joe Bob, I believe my impression still falls under the Hypersonal thoery. The only difference is that I had not decided which exaggerated view to take (the negative or the positive impression). Based on the high-anonymity of his message I assume on one extreme that he is sketchy and or ugly and to the other extreme he is a non-conforming intellectual.
*names have been changed
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3 comments:
Thea,
I think this is an extremely interesting way to form impressions of people online. It is odd to me that you get lots of random messages on Facebook from people that you do not know. I tend to associate Facebook messaging with a more intimate way to communicate with my friends as an alternative to letting everyone see our conversation on our walls.
However, I do agree that the impressions we form from these random messages tend to be negative when we cannot see the person's profile. We solely base our impressions on what they say in the message, and from your encounter with Billy Bob, I would have declared him a creep for not knowing me at all and having the audacity to call me "cutie". How did Billy Bob find you? And what made him decide to friend you and send you a message, as if you would actually respond and become friends with him? In terms of the prospective Cornell student, this is more interesting because he actually has a reason to contact you. The fact that his profile was not blocked allows for you to understand who this person is before you enter into any type of conversation with the person. I like that you talk about being given more and more cues helped you develop an understanding of who the person talking to you was.
Like I said before, I normally do not receive Facebook messages from people that I do not know, but I once received a friend request and then a message from a man with the same last name as I have. He is about 8 years older than me, and he is from Spokane, Washington, so I do not understand why he would want to talk to me. I got a negative impression of him from his message because he simply said, "Your last name is hacker, SO IS MINE, you are automatically 500% cooler than anyone i know, INCLUDING MYSELF!!!" I mean, wow, you are cool!
Then, I got another message from another "Hacker" but after investigating into his profile a little since I had full access to it, I realized that this new boy had friended every Hacker on Facebook. So my second message made me feel a little less creeped out. I was just one name on a long list of Hackers to this guy.
Hey Jamie,
I have had disturbing facebook encounters similar to yours. One girl had friended me, exclaiming "We have the same name!" Then when I looked at her profile, she only had four friends all with the same first name--Thea.
:/
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