Philosophers tell us that
mind-to-mind communication is impossible. If Person B wants to know what Person
A is thinking, Person A has to articulate it through some physical means,
before it can reach Person B, who has to comprehend the information through the
same physical medium used by Person A. The implications of this evidently
unavoidable predicament is that we can never really know how other human beings
perceive themselves. We can only know how other people want other people to
perceive them.
Memoirs, diaries,
autobiographies; throughout history these things have provided they only means
to know what people think of themselves, or at least, what they want other
people to think of them. Then, without any warning, a movement swept through
modernity that booted memoirs, diaries, and autobiographies from their exalted
status as the source of personal information: enter, social media.
Have you ever googled
yourself?
Most of us have. Some of us
multiple times. Just to check, right?
Some people are blessed
with the anonymity that comes with a common combination of given and surnames
that renders them nearly impossible to find. Other people share a name with a
celebrity, which achieves the same effect. But however hidden it may be, the
truth is that almost all of us have, in some tiny respect, personal
information, which we have published ourselves, accessible via the
internet. I call it publicly personal information.
Confession: I'm
scared of social media.
Before we continue, let me
make an important distinction.
- The legal definition
of stalking: Criminal activity consisting of the repeated following and harassing of
another person. (http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Stalking)
- The cultural definition
of stalking: casually (okay…sometimes not so casually) researching another
person using the information that can be found on the internet, usually
published by the person in question themselves (thank you Facebook).
People engaged in the first
activity are criminals and dangerous. Those of us that make ready use of the
second are simply curious and non-malicious opportunists utilizing the
resources made available by individuals themselves to find out more.
Frequently, within two or
three weeks of meeting people—but never right away--I'll look them up online to
see how they portray themselves. It's interesting to see a person's profile
about himself or herself. It's also scary to see what those media allow strangers
to learn about a person without their direct knowledge.
For instance, did you know
that Instagram has a function that attaches location information to a photo?
Mobile users may access a map view of a person's profile that presents each
picture as a pin showing where it was taken. This means that, for the user who
has this function enabled on a public profile, anyone who wishes can identify
every spot that the user stopped to take a picture and post it online.
Again, it all depends on
how much information a user allows the platform to access, but many times the
platform doesn't divulge its intention. The Instagram app simply asks for
permission to access location data, camera, photo history, and contacts at
installation.
If you've read my bio, you
know that Nicole Pendragon is not actually my name. Am I paranoid? Maybe a
little bit. But if I am, my paranoia is not entirely unfounded.
I have a limited bubble of
social networks under my real name, meaning two: linkedin and twitter. I'm not
counting Google+ because I don't use it at all, and I only have it because I
have an email and Google does that super annoying thing where
it creates a page for you if you want to use any of its products.
I'm actually a pretty heavy
twitter user. As a news junkie, I can follow all my favorite news sources,
influential people, and select companies, neatly consolidated into one place.
It's convenient for information consumption, but as a producer, I fall
significantly short.
I like Linkedin because
it’s a professional platform that allows me to stay connected to people I'm not
necessarily friends with, but want to be in contact with nonetheless. Recently,
I was reading an article about how to use Linkedin, and the author asked what
happened when you googled your name. As mentioned beforehand, I'd done that
before, but it had been some time, so I did it again. Now, I'm not one of those
fortunate souls with a generic name or a celebrity affiliate, so the first
several google results (for my real name) are actually me. I expected that the
first to pop up would be my Linkedin page. To my considerable surprise, I
discovered that my twitter handle, from which I have posted a grand total of five
tweets in the course of less than a year was the first entry.
At that point I realized
that I need to do two things:
(a) use twitter more
(b) use it for purely professional-grade
activity
Perhaps you've run across the
considerably debated question about whether or not it is ethical for employers
to google their potential employees before hiring. I don't understand how
that's even a question. In the first place, how could such a barrier be legally
enforced? Also, what is unethical about it? All that can be discovered on the
internet through facebook, twitter, instagram, and other such sites is
information posted with the full control and consent of the person involved.
And, depending on the position, the publicly personal details of an individual
could be anywhere from moderately to extremely relevant to the employer.
I fully expect that any
potential employer will have looked me up on the internet well before I
interview. Today I have discovered that the first thing they will see is my
activity on twitter. When I say that I intend to use twitter for
profession-grade activity alone, I don't mean that I want it to be a
twitter-version of my Linkedin activity—it’s still a personal platform, after
all—instead I want my twitter page to be indicative of my personality, without
revealing my personal activity.
It's interesting what you
can learn about how a person chooses to represent themselves on any platform,
including elevator speeches, professional profiles, and non-professional
profiles such as their social media.
Facebook, Twitter, and the
like sometimes get a bad rap for the idea that they allow a person to represent
a false image of themselves (for any number of reasons; preserving anonymity,
boosting self-image, etc) to the public. That certainly does happen, I grant
you (it's what I'm doing right now, isn't it?), but more often than not, that
bad rap is undeserved for two reasons.
Point A: People are
unlikely to represent themselves falsely. Most people on social media connect
themselves to people whom they know in person. Automatically,
there's a accountability factor built in. Any falsified information posted to
an online social platform is likely to be seen, and possibly revealed, by
someone who knows better. Research suggests that the "paper trail"
created by written words or images posted to a public platform creates quite
the deterrent against dishonesty. Any lies posted online are generally not big
enough to signify.
Point B: False
representation is not always a bad thing. I write this blog under an assumed
name so that I can keep a record of my writings in a public forum (my own form
of accountability) without a breach in my privacy. Even in the case where a
person is choosing to represent himself or herself falsely in order to garner a
better image for themselves than they believe their own personality could, you
can learn what they value in who they wish they were.
Social media allows us to
access something that only autobiographies could provide previously: a person's
self-perception. Philosophers will tell you that mind-to-mind communication is
impossible, and thus you can never know truly how a person perceives
themselves. However, the sort of statuses that a person posts to Facebook, or
the pictures they upload to Instagram can reveal what they wish they were, and
what they wish others to think about them. If you know that person in
"real life", you suddenly have another perception of that person, a
perspective separate from your own. False or otherwise, a person's social media
profiles will always augment the information you have in real life.
So compose your version of
how others ought to understand your self-perception; read between the lines
about how your friends choose to present themselves. Consider how that
contrasts with what you already know about them.
But don't be malicious
about it. That's just not cool.
Best wishes,
Nicole
