PurpleCar

Warning: Online Profiles Ahead

Do online profiles contain too much information? Why do people post things as personal as religious affiliation or favorite sexual position?

To understand this, perhaps you can take a moment to ask yourself: What defines me? Pick 5 general categories. Is it your religion? Your car model? The movies you watch?

Here’s a better question: What is the group activity where you spend the most time?

Do you play World of Warcraft for hours a day? Do you go to church once a week or are you at some church-sponsored activity almost every day? How much time a week do you spend in school?

Once you’ve answered these better questions about where and with whom you spend your time, check your Facebook (or other online networking) profile. Do your answers match your profile? Is your most common group activity listed? If not, I’ll bet you aren’t using that site very much, or you are generally uninterested in using it.

The majority of psychology research shows that our actions don’t necessarily match our belief systems. What we do, instead of what we believe, defines us. Many people will list their beliefs about themselves in their online profiles, but those beliefs don’t reflect where the person really spends their time. For example, your most common group activity shows your values. I spend a lot of my work and alone time reading or online. Those are very general categories, but they match my real interests. I don’t say this anywhere on Facebook. Why? Because I think in terms of what other people want to know when I fill out profile information. This may be (at least in part) why I use FB so little.

Online profiles are, in the current culture, statements of identity. Lots of serious works (Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely) and pop psychology books (Blink by Malcolm Gladwell) are written about how humans make judgments. The general consensus is that we take basic elements of situations and form impressions quite quickly. Why we do this (evolutionary reasons, social reasons) is up for more debate, but suffice it is to say that we make “snap” decisions.

Some people internalize the more common elements we use in this culture to make those snap judgments about people: Age, location, profession, religion. Since people use these elements most commonly to assess whether a person is friend or foe, individuals will adopt these vital stats as defining of themselves. In other words, what people believe about you is what you end up believing about yourself. This identification process takes place usually quite early and is pretty much basically solidified, on average, by the time a person is 18. Sure, we learn stuff, we get new jobs, etc., but our basic belief systems, locations, religions, etc., don’t change drastically.

By filling out an online profile in a more genuine way, based more on my actions instead of my beliefs, I’m more likely to find my common-belief cohorts and can more easily form groups and make alliances with similar folks. Forming social contacts is the essential element of the human condition, and the online profile is the main and most efficient step toward that end.

When people overfill their profiles, they are presenting their best image of themselves, whether or not it matches reality. When they offer too much information, they are either looking for similarly-minded individuals, fancy themselves shocking or perhaps are trying to prove their uniqueness. In the end, they are reaching out. They want to evoke the “I’m a Christian, too!” comment and then perhaps strengthen that connection.

Ask yourself again, honestly, where you spend your time. Track your time in a journal for a week if you don’t know. Are you a commuter? A bad sleeper? Where do you spend your freetime? If you are using social networking to find compadres, make sure you fill out the profiles based on your actions (e.g., I’ve seen Monty Python’s The Holy Grail 29 times but haven’t watched it since 1991) instead of your beliefs about yourself: (e.g. Active Monty Python Fan Club member), then your online networking will end up being more effective and satisfactory. The hard part is, noticing what you do and what you believe you do are two different things.

image via Molly Thornberg

This was originally posted on the Philadelphia Stories Weblog

___________________________

a busy (and deadly) philly intersection

I blog about technology and psychology, and occasionally about the writing life. Sometimes the worlds of Internet culture, behavior and language meet. When it does, it ain’t pretty. Recently, a “comment war” started on my blog at that intersection. It was an accident waiting to happen; Imagine Cottman and The Boulevard with no stoplights.

The Internet, the World Wide Web, mobile phones, etc. all require new terms. Naturally, technology and social networking terms come up in my writing often. Neologisms are the red-headed stepchild pioneers of language, [continue reading…]

My post on the 100 Books meme on Facebook has a long discussion in the comments section on what constitutes a “meme.” I say that a meme requires some sort of participation on the receivers’ part, much like the 100 Books meme requires users to highlight the books they’ve read out of the 100. Readers commented that meme requires no participation at all, nor is it my mini-definition (for the purposes of that post) of a “little chain-letter like game that spreads around the Internet.”

The arguments got a bit heated. I’ll explain my position, which seems ungrounded to my readers, in a minute.

First, I’d like to quote Paul Wood, an Assistant Editor at Merriam-Webster.com. Here is his response to my email asking if he could confirm if Richard Dawkins coined the term, and if he could fill the history and etymology on the word “meme:”

The evidence does seem to suggest that Richard Dawkins did, in fact, coin meme. He introduces this word in his book The Selfish Gene (1976), and describes his choice of this word as follows:

“We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. ‘Mimeme’ comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like ‘gene.’ I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to meme. If it is any consolation, it could alternatively be thought of as being related to ‘memory,’ or to the French word même. It should be pronounced to rhyme with ‘cream.’ “(p. 192)

For Dawkins, a meme is the cultural equivalent of a gene: “Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperm or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation” (192). Any idea or cultural expression which can spread from person to person within a culture would be an example of a meme (an English-page Google Books search for works between, say, 1976 and 2000, should turn up plenty of examples of memes in discussion outside of specifically Internet-related contexts). Many contemporary discussions of memes focus on the Internet because it appears to have become the most viable means of meme transmission (one can only wonder if, when Dawkins came up with the idea of memes, he could have predicted lolcats and double rainbow viral videos).

The Greek mimeme (μίμημα) means “that which is imitated,” and it comes from mimeisthai (μιμεϊσθαι), “to imitate.”

Paul Wood
Assistant Editor
Merriam-Webster, Inc.
47 Federal Street, PO Box 281
Springfield, MA 01102 http://www.Merriam-Webster.com http://www.WordCentral.com

I never disputed the Richard Dawkins origin. What I disputed was the definition of meme of “any cultural thing that spreads.” My issue is with the “spread.” Whether passive or active (and in the case of Internet memes, it is mostly active), participation is required for “spread.” In other words, it is not a meme if you don’t catch it (or watch/read it) or you don’t pass it (or send it) on to others. In the case of the Internet, most of the memes I write about are written media, hence my “chain-letter like” phrase.

Since I blog in the explanatory journalism arena, I not only look at the pure definition of neologisms like “meme,” but also the common user’s working knowledge of the word. Most end-user Facebook members will recognize “meme” as something that gets sent to you, you watch or read it, then you forward it to friends. The quickest way to explain this to a mostly older audience (the Generation X and above demographics, the target group I write for), “chain-letter” will communicate the concept most quickly and efficiently. It isn’t perfect, but in that case it works.

My approach to language is definitely descriptivist, as opposed to prescriptivist. I believe that language grows and changes. Although we must respect and work within a basic, general framework, to declare that there is one “correct” or “proper” English is to show a lack of understanding of the eons of scholarship surrounding languages. Yes, one should learn the most accepted forms of grammar, and learn how culturally language use is connected to socio-economic class structures. But after we are past our elementary stages, as adults we can understand each other well enough and should be tolerant to and learn to embrace language differences.

I’ll admit, as a writer of not only journalism but of fiction and poetry, I enjoy pushing the expected boundaries of words. But when I am writing for this blog or for media outlets, I go for the most efficient ways to explain concepts. I’m not penning a dictionary here, I’m explaining a complicated Internet phenomenon. I’ll use, bend, manipulate, create words that do that in the fewest words possible.

You prescriptivists can have it out in the comments.

Thanks to Paul Wood at Merriam-Webster.com. (My subscription to the unabridged dictionary at m-w.com is my most important online resource. If you are a writer or just someone who loves words and language history, then check out their service.)

In light of Wikileaks financial troubles (major credit companies cutting their accounts, etc.), I declare today Wikileaks Jokes (/Poke Fun at) Day.

Comment here or @ me on Twitter.

UPDATE: Here’s a compiled list of the fun so far (scroll down a bit for the awesomely awful puns):

This is the joke, by @edkohler, that got me started:
@edkohler The easiest way to shut down Wikileaks would be to have Yahoo! acquire it.

Jokes Written by me:

Watch as husbands tell Bank of America that their wives’ credit cards are part of Wikileaks’ line of credit.

Wikileaks should start up an Etsy Shop. They can frame or decoupage documents on mugs. That can be their new income source.

The CIA’s favorite side dish: Julian Fries. (this could be: What’s the CIA’s favorite side dish: Julian Fries)

My Fake Headline Puns:

Group of unsatisfied readers filter through Assange’s website for only the best news releases: Picky Leaks.

Teens exposing each other on a new photo website. Is your kid wearing a turtleneck? Look for her on HickeyLeaks.

New Mean Girls sequel examines what happens when the popular girl loses her friends. It’s called “Cliquey Leaks.”

New website that releases the newest scientific information about diapers and baby diarrhea: IckyLeaks

During a raid, Interpol ransacked Julian Assange’s kitchen and cracked his maple syrup bottle. It was a Sticky Leak.

When Witches Pee: WickedLeaks

Guerilla Vegetables: WikiLeeks.

Fake Headline and Other Puns by Others:

@deekdeekster: Of course, you know about the bean-spilling high jumper? Wiki Leaps

@RobBlatt: new website shows sites of previously unknown bodies of flowing water: WikiCreeks.

@deekdeekster: then there was the would-be comedian with verbal diarrhea who constantly quoted Oscar Wilde. Witty Leaks

@tangofoxtrot: At Disney World, someone published plans for a new cartoon mouse. #MickeyLeak.

@tangofoxtrot: Oh, and someone told me to watch out for a RickRoll. #RickyLeak.

@deekdeekster: a thief broke into the offices of the Magic Circle and stole the sawing-woman-in-half plans. Tricky Leak

@deekdeekster: and the woman with dye running down her face in the rain? Wiggy Leaks

@deekdeekster: then there was the dog I spent some time with – just couldn’t keep his tongue still – Licky Weeks

@purplehayz: Some “plumbers” broke into the Watergate hotel and stole Dem information – water leak 😛

@purplehayz: What mom’s all over the world deal with, DiaperLeaks

@purplehayz: Time for dinner – GreenLeeks

@CAMouse: Welsh national symbol? Wikileeks

@motownmutt: I wrote one on a sticky note, but the glue wasn’t strong, and it blew away. Stickyweak

More Leaky Fun:
New Yorker’s Santa Leaks, sent by @jennyzohn: Have you seen “Santaleaks” in this week’s @NewYorker? Pretty good stuff. http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2010/12/20/101220ta_talk_greenman

Thanks to everyone who wrote, read, laughed and groaned with me!

-Christine Cavalier