This is a study of profile management across various social medias, that involves the collection of the text data(except for their names) from 15 on-line profiles (3 for each subject) and an interpretation of the data from strangers through the portraits they draw of the person based on the profile. With the human “algorithm” on one hand, the data was also parsed through LIWC (a linguistic analysis model) that gives a personality analysis of the text on the other hand.
Interestingly, there is an overall precise match of the disposition between the interpretive drawing and the personality analysis result. And when the data is not enough to make a judgment, people were confused just as the computer does. The two methods also support each other for details they are unable to find out respectively. I found that human drawings tend to make a better guess about the person’s age, and their disposition seems to be based on the looking of some other humans that shares the same features. It is also interesting that when the linguistic analysis shows very low “negative emotions” from the text, the number of positive vs. melancholy looking faces in the drawings are almost even.
So what exactly does it say?
The initial intention of the project is to testify my hypothesis that people use social media to strategically present themselves. And the use of one media is complementary and influenced by the rest.
Most of the persons I studies have a high awareness of “what in where”, that is separating the information about themselves in different categories and share them via different networks, and also “how to put”, that is organizing how the same information is stated differently on various media.
There is only one person who has told me before that her Facebook self barely represent her in reality, whose result has shown a consistent pattern throughout all of her networks. In that case, she has done a good job keeping the actual self away from the medias, while still keeping her image consistent.
