Facebook: Personal Information

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Don’t bother introducing yourself anymore. That information is already on the Internet. Your Facebook profile says it all when it displays your friends, pictures, interests, and basic information in one convenient spot. This online platform tells viewers any information they would ask for upon meeting you: your name, your school, your interests, and more. As Facebook grows more popular, more people will have access to your profile and will be able to see any of the personal information that you choose to post. Even if Facebook fails, another social networking site will rise afterwards, probably prompting you for even more information. What is the point of gathering all of this information in one place, and how does it benefit the viewer? We should further examine why people look at other users’ profiles in order to understand what information people are most interested in seeing and why they care about this information.
By aiming to understand people’s motives for viewing other users’ profiles, we can ensure that giving others access to certain information will not harm us later on. When considering this question, we should keep in mind the different groups on Facebook that could be viewing other people’s profiles. Two of the bigger groups, parents and friends, will be the groups we discuss. Some studies show that people use people’s profiles to collect information about their friends (Walther, Van Der Heide and Kim). The information we choose to post about ourselves is not the only information on Facebook about us. Someone could be looking at your best friend’s profile right now to find out more about you.
In the following pages, we will discuss relevant information that could give possible explanations as to why people would ...

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...arshall, Tara C., et al. "Attachment Styles As Predictors Of Facebook-Related Jealousy And Surveillance In Romantic Relationships." Personal Relationships 20.1 (2013): 1-22.
McAndrew, Francis T. and Hye Sun Jeong. "Who does what on Facebook? Age, sex, and relationship status as predictors of Facebook use." Computers in Human Behavior 28.6 (2012): 2359-2365.
Nadkarni, Ashwini and Stefan G. Hofmann. "Why do people use Facebook?" Personality and Individual Differences 52.3 (2012): 243-249.
Trottier, Daniel. "Interpersonal Surveillance on Social Media." Canadian Journal of Communications 37.2 (2012): 319-332.
Turkle, Sherry. "Connected, But Alone?" TED 2012. Long Beach, n.d.
Walther, J. B., et al. "The Role of Friends' Appearance and Behavior on Evaluations of Individuals on Facebook: Are We Known by the Company We Keep?" Human Communication Research 34.1 (2008): 28-49.

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