Facebook & Impression Management

Facebook allows users to create a fluid digital self, ever changing, with a fully viewable history of who they have been online. It is all about putting your life on display and being the subject to the impressions of others. As such, there are several theories emerging about the link between impression management and the accuracy of first impressions on Facebook.

One theory argues that people do express their real personality and actual characteristics online, which creates accurate impressions (back et al. 2010). This is because personal information found online is usually valid, so profiles usually mirror the inner life of the user and maintaining a false identity online is difficult to control (Back et al, 2010). This suggests that on Facebook people usually portray themselves accurately.

However, Back et al (2010) does note that there are some cases in which Facebook profiles can be inaccurate. This happens in “zero-acquaintance contexts” (Back et al. 2010). So, when you add someone on Facebook who you don’t know offline and you don’t know anyone that knows the person, then there is a greater chance that the person could be portraying an idealised or false virtual identity.

On the other hand, another emerging theory that has been growing in popularity suggests that people construct and manage their idealised virtual self. The “idealised virtual-identity hypothesis” explains that online profiles usually portray the user as their “ideal-self” (Back et al., 2010, p. 372). This means that online you try to show the best version of yourself.

Facebook increases susceptibility to the first impressions of others and this can make some people self-conscious as they navigate how to portray themselves online. This makes the user wonder what other people think of them and how they want other people to think of them. Boon & Sinclair (2009, p. 103) argue that “cultural pressure, social mores and individual desire – or a mixture thereof – will lead most, if not all of us to create idealistic virtual representations of our real world selves on Facebook”.

Facebook is fundamentally impression construction and management. Users control how others make first impressions of them. For example, most Facebook users predominately post the best photos of themselves and mainly post when they're doing something, then we only get a snapshot into a person’s life. If that snapshot is the best of times, then our perception about other people’s lives is influenced by the users control to only portray the ideal self.

This suggests that all profiles are inherently a socially constructed façade to some degree. Facebook profiles “all contain an element of performativity” (Boon & Sinclair, 2009). As Boon & Sinclair (2009, p. 103) explain your profile is a recreation of your digital self, which is “to one extent or another, part who we’d like to be – the creation of something new, perhaps better, but ultimately “other”.

The nature of the app requires constant impression management of a hybrid identity: the maintenance of both your online and offline identity so that neither inhibits the other. However, these digital selves can become fractured, confused reflections of a person, never wholly unreal, but never wholly real either, both true and not true (Boon & Sinclair, 2009, p.104). This brings to question the individual authenticity and validity of Facebook.

Exposure to the first impressions and judgements of others brings up questions about the complex relationship between social media and personal identity. According to Boon & Sinclair (2009), Facebook may raise identity issues due to “the omnipresent artificiality of identity within these spaces”. The online digital self is like an echo of your offline self, which can become negative if we question which face we present is real.

Furthermore, this digital façade can create feelings of distrust and isolation. The very structure and functioning of Facebook seem to encourage superficiality. Boon & Sinclair, (2009) argue that “Facebook seems to encourage us to create essentially false communities of superficial relationships.” (Boon & Sinclair, 2009, p. 104).

On a positive note, Boon & Sinclair (2009) found that Facebook can draw attention to “unexamined aspects” of our self-presentation to others online, our social assumptions, and our moral stance. This suggests that it is important to know that impression management is a part of Facebook, but we should strive for a better balance, and not worry too much about maintaining the ideal digital self.

This promotes the idea that we should be more conscious of how much time we spend on Facebook managing the impressions of others through managing our digital self, and question whether this brings meaning and purpose to one’s life.

References

Back, M, Stopfer, J, Vazire, S, Gaddis, S, Schmukle, S, Egloff, B & Gosling, S 2010, 'Facebook profiles reflect actual personality, not self-idealization', Psychological Science, Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 372-374.

Boon, S & Sinclair, C 2009, 'A world I don't inhabit: disquiet and identity in Second Life and

Facebook', Educational Media International, Vol. 46, No.2, pp. 99-110.