Credits: Social Media
How social media could be skewing your perception of someone else’s personality
A new study found that people often make inaccurate impressions of one another from various social media posts, with posts containing purely text posing the most risk.
Every single one of us is, in some way, guilty of making snap judgements of people based on what they provide on social media. After all, what someone posts is often a curated perception of their life.
Online versus reality
Researchers based out of the Culture & Cognition Lab at Cornell University have shed light on the disconnect between what we see on social media, and the real person behind it. Their paper, “The Self Online: When Meaning-Making is Outsourced to the Cyber Audience,” was published in PLOS One.
Through the analysis of Facebook status updates, the scientists were able to identify key areas where aspects of the posters personality were not noticeable through their posts. They did this by asking people to rank themselves in certain areas like self-esteem, which was then compared with what others thought of them after viewing their posts.
Researchers did find that posts containing photos, videos or links were more accurate in describing the posters perception.
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“The impression people form about us on social media based on what we post can differ from the way we view ourselves,” said Qi Wang, professor of psychology. “A mismatch between who we are and how people perceive us could influence our ability to feel connected online and the benefits of engaging in social media interaction.”
There was some correlation between online and real-world perception
Interestingly, the study suggested that some perceptions fell in line with real-life data. For instance, posts from female social media users were ranked as more extroverted, which is similar to real-world data.
“We present ourselves in line with our cultural frameworks,” the professor added, “and others can discern our ‘cultured persona’ through meaning making of our posts.
The team believes their data could be used by companies to design social media interfaces that better communicate ones own perception.
Wang added: “If people’s view of us is very different from who we actually are, or how we would like to be perceived. It could undermine our social life and well-being.”
So, next time you see a picture of someones brunch eggs, maybe dont make any snap decisions on how much they love themselves!
