Faculty Forum
Me, Myself, and My Facebook
al exchanges, according to one of our experiments. Facebook is not your socialsupport network. But, it is a community built around you and your interests. The applications you download, the groups you join, the friends you add, and the amount of information you disclose all say something about you. Our studies show that these are powerful cues that shape others’ impressions of you. On a daily basis. What you say in your status update today, and how you say it, can have an immediate effect on your “public” image. Therefore, Facebook has transformed us overnight into strategic self-presenters, forcing us to consciously think about how we manage our image. Kind of like celebrities and public figures. We are the center of our own universe. We know we are being noticed, nay watched, nay followed. The fact that we have “followers” makes us feel like rock stars! When we update our status on Facebook or send out a tweet via Twitter, we are not communicating with our fans, er ... friends, we are broadcasting to them. These are not intimate conversations with a close-knit group of friends, but carefully crafted revelations to a large group of weak ties. All this is good for the ego. If you have noticed, the most successful communication technologies in recent times are those that celebrate the self. The “i” in the iPod and the “my” in MySpace really represent the user. The audience member is no more simply a receiver of communication, but a sender as well. Communication is an innate human need, and modern technologies have enabled us to fulfill this need rapidly, efficiently and perpetually. One wonders whether the obsessive use of these technologies simply signals a desire for perpetual contact with others, or with the technology itself. Three years ago, an information-science student of mine complained to me about the spotty wireless signal in Carnegie Building. He told me that coming to a classroom without WiFi is like going to a building without a restroom. “What if I wanted to Google urgently?” he asked. Today, my undergraduates circumvent that happily. If they cannot IM, they text on their mobile devices. If they cannot fire up their Facebook page, they tweet. What they don’t do as much anymore is talk amongst themselves. ●
(Editor’s note: In each issue of the Communicator, the Faculty Forum allows faculty members in the College to provide an update on their research or information about work in their field that impacts us on a daily basis. Professor S. Shyam Sundar is co-director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory. A member of the Department of FilmVideo and Media Studies, his work on psychological aspects of communication technologies is widely cited. He is chair of the Communication and Technology Division of the International Communication Association.)
Not a day goes by without Facebook and LinkedIn suggesting that I add someone from Penn State into my network. As a Penn Stater, you know that you are one among many. Your orientation was held in a gym, your commencement in a sports arena and your acts of kindness turned into the world’s largest studentrun charity. Now, years after graduation, Facebook serves as a constant reminder of the vastness of the Penn State family. Chances are you have more friends in your network than most of your peers who decided to go to other schools. But, is more necessarily better? Our studies show that it can be. The greater the number of friends in your network, the more attractive, popular and confident you are perceived to be. And people are more likely to want to “friend” you. However, this appeal works only up to a point. If you have too many friends in your network, then you may be perceived as insecure. And people doubt the genuineness of your social contact. So, how many is too many? A recent article in The Economist pegged the average number of friends at 120, but studies with undergraduates have shown the average to be at least twice that much. With Facebook hitting the 200 million mark and still growing strong, it’s only a matter of time before all our acquaintances become our Facebook friends, making it one giant Rolodex. Having more entries in this Rolodex is an asset. The bigger your network, the greater your net worth, in terms of social capital. This can be particularly handy when you want to gather support for a cause or get signatures for a campaign. But, it is not a great vehicle for one-on-one messaging—unless you have lots and lots of time to spare for commenting on all your friends’ status updates and wallposts. Most people don’t. What’s more, they do not care much for Facebook profiles that feature a lot of emotion-
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