What you see is what you get on Facebook
Come to find out, Facebook profiles are pretty realistic after all. At least that’s what psychologist Sam Gosling of University of Texas-Austin found in his research:
I was surprised by the findings because the widely held assumption is that people are using their profiles to promote an enhanced impression of themselves. In fact, our findings suggest that online social networking profiles convey rather accurate images of the profile owners, either because people aren’t trying to look good or because they are trying and failing to pull it off.
These findings suggest that online social networks are not so much about providing positive spin for the profile owners but are instead just another medium for engaging in genuine social interactions, much like the telephone.
Gosling arrived at this conclusion by comparing the Facebook profiles of 236 college-age people in the U.S. and Germany to questionaires that the subjects filled out about their actual personalities.
