Your Online Profile Actually Tells a Lot About You 272
An anonymous reader writes "Despite all the media reports that your Facebook profile is giving the wrong impression, a psychological study shows people really can understand your personality from your online profile. Turns out you're not giving the wrong impression with your profile; you're giving the right impression to the wrong people. You can actually learn more about someone's Agreeableness from their online profile than from a first date."
You can also learn alot from someone's home (Score:1, Interesting)
What's on their bookshelf? What pictures do they hang up? The difference is, we usually don't let strangers wander around our homes looking at these things.
Re:Duh (Score:5, Interesting)
The only remotely suprising thing was that women were both easier to understand and understood people better through profiles.
For me it isn't, but maybe just 'cause I'm a girl who's spent far too much time in heavily female online communities. I think it's just an extension of how people work in the real world; women, just by generally being more communicative (not being sexist so much as that's what most studies find), drop more hints, and probably 'cause they drop so many know what to look for.
The In-security Blanket (Score:5, Interesting)
It's really surprising just how much we disconnect ourselves from our many social inhibitions when communicating over the internet versus when we're actually interacting with others in public, even when we're fully aware that the internet is far less private than physically going outside to any real-world, public location. On a sub-conscious level, mere text on a screen is somehow far less threatening to us than seeing another person or hearing their voice, even though the opposite is probably more true. (Likely due to the lengthy delay in reaction to our own actions, in addition to severely limited feedback accompanying those reactions.)
Perhaps if we retired text communications in favor of real-time teleconferencing, where you actually have to see who you're talking to, you'd see people become a lot more careful about what they say and do on the internet from day to day.
Re:Duh (Score:1, Interesting)
Seems to be a few new studies that simply find that women want to talk, not communicate. A couple go so far as to posit that women *need* to talk. I tend to think their vocal chords are connected neurally to the parts of their brain that think whereas men can think without their vocal chords moving. Just my take, not being sexist so much as offering a theory.
Re:lightweight article (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Duh (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah, but when they talk they tell you things if you know how to parse the string-drop this chatter, highlight that word 'cause of intonation, flip those two, etc,. Men are similar, (and studies suggest they talk just as much as women), but the parsing works a bit differently.
Re:The In-security Blanket (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:lightweight article (Score:5, Interesting)
As you said, though, it does come down to whom you befriend on Facebook - your real life friends, your online friends or a combination.
Re:The In-security Blanket (Score:4, Interesting)
Our intuitions about safety don't work because there may be nothing to trigger our alarms.
My advice to minors about posting personal information is to ask themselves whether they'd be OK with having the creepiest person in the neighborhood see it. The creepiest person online is obviously a lot worse, but the creepiest person in the neighborhood is a concrete concept that their brain's safety module has already sized up.
Re:Employers look! (Score:5, Interesting)
I can tell you as an employer, we scan all the popular "social networking" sites before looking at someone as a possible employee.
Hell, that's what I'm counting on - my own personal website has a far more diversified list of my projects (as well as source code, schematics, and other bits and pieces) than you'll ever get from a resume. Of course then again it's not on some trendy "social network" site - it's my name, as a domain, that I've owned for years. I figure, if they're going to look, why not show off? (And not in the suggestive 18-25 girl sense - though being single again, I wish our recruiters would look for that sort of thing.)
Re:Duh (Score:1, Interesting)
My parser only recognizes em dashes as the preface to a parenthetical thought — like this one — while hyphens are reserved for hyphenation.
Re:Of course this assumes that when you filled it (Score:4, Interesting)
That's pretty much it. I spent a great deal of my time creating fake information about me that makes me look favorable for possible employers. According to the bits and pieces you find about me online when you enter my name in a search engine I'm an accomplished freelancing game creator, writing articles for a local newspaper, who spends his spare time as a volunteer with the fire brigade, and so on.
Actually, I have written a few games but hardly anything to write about, never wrote for a paper (I was doing computer maintainence for them, which must have somehow made me an editor...) and the last time I saw a fire department from the inside was in my youth (I'm just still on their roster, despite me moving away from there about 15 years ago).
Let's be honest here, employers assume that you lie on your CV. So they start looking for other sources of information about you, the the easiest is to run your name through Google (provided you're not John Smith or similar). That they're actually using it can be seen in my mailbox.
Re:I agree (Score:1, Interesting)
Basically, "a college student". I was required by one of my freshman classes to register a facebook profile.
Re:Employers look! (Score:3, Interesting)
This gets into a wild question of ethics and meta-communication.
There are varying opinions about the role of HR vs. "being aggressive" with job searches, etc.
Since employers often do look, it rewards smarter people to shield their wilder pages away from simple searches, and/or post "employer-friendly" profiles in plain sight.
Then it gets into:
"If you lied on your profile, should we trust you?"
"Why were you looking at all?"
Re:Just another case of... (Score:4, Interesting)
Right and the peacock unfurls its huge tail without realizing the full ramifications either.
A lot of animals do silly or risky stuff to try to show off to potential mates.
The people using facebook, myspace etc are no different.
If some grey suit doesn't hire some girl just because she or someone posted a pic of her half naked and drunk on facebook, despite her proven skills in the line of work, she's probably better off working elsewhere.
Other bosses might just hire people who'd make their company a more fun place to be in.
Now if you see that person has a big problem with alcohol (there might be other clues or signs) then sure don't hire.
Re:Duh (Score:2, Interesting)
I think it is more that women get women but don't get men, men do not get women or men. Thus we find that more people understand what a female is thinking. Women like to think they get men but really do not - they just "get" that many men want sex and do not go past there (and then proceed to live really shallow and fulfilling personal lives).
Dropping hints doesn't work - never has and never will. If you think they do I can assure you that you do understand the average male mind. Males almost never notice them (some do, but most do not) and while you are dropping said hints you aren't being yourself. If a male is to get them then chances are you have to be yourself. This is why the vast majority of female "hints" end up with something they don't remotely want - we are doing what you are overtly saying you want.
If you want to be understood by the vast majority of the people be forthright and honest - it rarely fails. Hints go awry even amongst the same peer group - "I hate you" rarely is misunderstood. Not very many do this be it male or female but then you don't need hints or to try and figure out the decoder ring for the other person. You have to accept you will get more people to dislike you this way (and is why few do it) and it can be for silly reasons (how dare he like chocolate and not understand why someone would prefer coconut! I hate them but will pretend I like them!), however the ones that would dislike you only like some false caricature of you they have built up because the didn't understand your hints females use or outright falsehood most males will project instead. Nor do you appear to be subservient to the other person (and I think this is a big one there), people in general do not seem to handle this very well.
See being fairly blunt is easy - I'm not too hard to understand. However I bet I tick a number of people off. Further I bet most that have some nice platitudes to offer believe most of the above but just will not say it or will try and put it "nicely", it still boils down to the same thing once you use the secret decoder ring. It is just I can fool myself into thinking a female that tells me I am "heavy" doesn't think I am fat if I really want too, however one that tells me I am fat leaves no wiggle room.
In Summary (Score:3, Interesting)
In summary for Slashdot users your profile can either:
1) Tell that you are a Karma whore .... 1) .... 2) .... 3) .... 4) ???? .... 5) Profit! :) )
2) Tell that you are always baiting to be flamed
3) You actually have good Karma
4) Never take anything seriously if everything is modded +5 Funny
5) Are way too serious and boring if everything is +5 Interesting
6) You ask too many questions if +5 interesting
7) Show you take too much pride in being the first at anything (first post or low UID)
8) Have too much spare time if you post on Slashdot!
9) If you link to Goatse you have a very troubled mind
10) Take advantage of others if you post an article on your website for ad-revenue
11) Fail to recognize patterns for posting dupe articles
12) Are greedy if you always post
13) You are Cowboy Neal. ( I think this was obligatory