Right now on Facebook, I "had a perfect spring term weekend."
On AIM, I'm "finance project, then dinner out with ali"
On Twitter, I'm " Blogging about social media kind of feels like a form of existentialism. I think."
On LinkedIn, I'm struggling to find a job.
And I have an entirely different personality on Blogger, mainly because I'm allowed way more characters.
As social media continue to explode, we suddenly have dozens, sometimes even hundreds, of different ways to express who we are. I'm not even going to list all of the ways social networks allow today's consumer to display information, because there are just way too many. But as a student of social media, it is interesting to note the different ways people tweak their personalities depending on which social medium they are using.
For me, Facebook is strictly for my friends, and people in my immediate (in real life) social circle. My status frequently includes current song lyrics that reflect my mood or plans, details about what I'm doing that week/weekend, or shout-outs to friends on their birthdays. AIM is the same, just a free way to talk to many people at once. My buddy list is solely people I know and have reason to talk to on a regular basis. My away messages, then, are pretty similar to my Facebook statuses-- what I'm doing, when I'm doing it, and how I'm feeling.
But I conduct myself differently in different areas of the Internet. I just started using Twitter, and I've found it more interesting to "follow" people I don't actually know, but who share my interests. With only 140 characters to craft your statement, it feels less creepy to follow someone via Twitter than to follow them on Facebook, with its over-sharing capabilities. So my "tweets" generally have more to do with what's happening in my chosen industry than anything about my emotions. And on LinkedIn, I'm just trying to job hunt, so I limit myself to professional information.
Managing all this information about myself can be daunting, and it does feel as if I have multiple personalities. Does anyone else feel this way? Is there a way that companies could capitalize on this in any way? Definitely good questions for the Web 2.0 age.
1 comment:
you made a very good point. i guess it allows you to have split personalities or gives you some sort of freedom to choose how you want to be seen as, like a happening person on facebook, and something else on the other.
i didn't think much about it, but truth is I struggle to update my fb status, twitter at times because maybe my schizophrenic mode is on, and i was wondering what to put on it? maybe it turns you into an attention seeker? lol.
anyways, i was just going around, and i was stuck. i enjoy reading your posts, btw, i'm a communications student as well, majoring in public relations. :) oh, i'm from malaysia. ;)
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