Focus of research

I plan on doing my research on the way people present themselves on social networking sites. I plan on using Facebook as the chosen location of my research, not for any particular reason but more for practical reasons I have a Facebook account. I used to have a Hi5 account that one of my friends who I kindly nicknamed my webmaster took care of. She updated my profile, added pictures and so forth. I would just respond to people, send messages and accept friends. But I digress…back to my research, I will use Irving Goffman's book "The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life" as a framework and compare the manner in which people present themselves on SNS to his theories. Additionally, I would like to try and assess whether the manner people present themselves on social networking sites reflects a culture obsessed with becoming famous. I might have to rework or rethink that last part. I have been thinking that maybe I would like to reformulate that second part and assessing whether social networking sites are as popular as they are because we area culture obsessed with ourselves. Or maybe I will look at both. I guess it comes down to what kind of literature I can find to substantiate my theories.

Vanity…I think it is pretty relevant to where we are in society right now. I mean reality tv is the norm now, could we get any more self involved. I think the fact that reality tv dominates the networks speaks volumes about where we are in society. I mean a profile of oneself is quite vain. Many like to think of it as their way of allowing others to know about them. Granted, sometimes this is really helpful and informative about a friend. I mean the info people include on their profiles sometimes allow you to know things about someone you’ve known for years but never knew about them. I suspect this coincides nicely with the idea that we have multiple personalities and depending on the situation we present different parts of ourselves. We do not act the way we do with our friends as we do with our professors for instance. What I find fascinating about sites such as Facebook is the manner in which we are forced to negotiate all of our multiple identities. I know for myself my “friends” on Facebook ranges from work colleagues to friends from elementary school. Fortunately, I am not too active on my Facebook profile so the negotiation is not too difficult because I use abstinence as my way to deal with this potential negotiation.


Which brings up the “friends” issue. It can be considered socially inappropriate to reject someone. The problem with accepting everyone you know is you run the risk of having all of your friends and acquaintances all together on one site forcing you to attempt to negotiate all of your different “personalities”. This can definitely be tricky to maneuver. Which personality will dominate your profile? Is your mother going to approve of your profile? Your best friend? Your boyfriend? Your friends obviously know what you look like….it would be one thing if people were only making new friends on SNS but we all know that the vast majority of our “friends” on these sites are people we know. So maybe we don’t want to be famous but we have become so vain that we act as if we are famous. I mean my discomfort with writing a blog is quite unwarranted. I mean who am I to attract a following of any nature, beyond the scope of this course. My writing skills are decent but not Pulitzer prize worthy. Who’s really going to steal my intellectual property…my fellow classmates? Of course not. That is absurd (don’t worry fellow classmates….I know you will not steal my thoughts…they are way too ambiguous to steal and presently quite a mess!)

Speaking of my discomfort I think it all comes down to....
Social awkwardness: I think I am socially akward online! I find it so ironic, this discomfort I have with the internet and online "stuff". I am quite sociable. It is definitely one of my strengths my ability to handle social situation. I like interactions with others...so why does this make me so uncomfortable? Maybe it is that in "real life" when interacting with others, I can see their face, I can see their body language, I can feel their presence- their interest of disinterest whereas online I have no sense of these elements that I rely on so heavily on to be able to effectively interact with others. I think it is the other side of the social interaction that I have always taken for granted because I am usually good with people. It's funny though because I like to observe how others act and see what makes them awkward whereas here I am online feeling very awkward. I am really happy that this is not in person because I am sweaty and nervous! (http://www.neurology.org/cgi/content/full/65/10/E20- I think the beginning of this article is quite relevant if you'd like to read a bit more on social awkwardness)
I bring all of this up because in having to attempt to objectively observe my own actions and reactions online I feel it will make me a better researcher in my attempts to try and get a feel of the profiles I will be observing and analyzing.
Okay well that’s all for now. Till next time…..