Social networking profiles are mostly real, no fear
The majority of netizens, these days, have strong inclination to social networking sites and hence, they are found to join Orkut, Facebook, Hi5 with great vigor. Some reports suggest that teens are joining these sites with days of visiting the internet for the first time. What types of profiles are submitted here then? Are they all fakes?
Well, this has become a deep-rooted concept by now even if it is not true. A new study completely refutes this widely held assumption that people love to fake themselves on social networking sites and states with conviction that netizens make use of their profiles to communicate real personality, rather than an idealized virtual identity.
The study was conducted under the aegis of scientists at the University of Texas, Austin and as per them, online social networking profiles that is to say in Facebook put across somewhat precise images of the profile owners. The major reason may be either people aren't trying to look good or because they are trying and failing to pull it off. Commenting on this discovery, lead author Sam Gosling of the research of over 700 million people worldwide who have online profiles, stated how he was surprised by the findings for the reason that the widely held assumption was that people were making use of their profiles to promote an enhanced impression of themselves. He said, "These findings suggest that online social networks are not so much about providing positive spin for the profile owners but are instead just another medium for engaging in genuine social interactions, much like the telephone".
It has been found that Sam Gosling and his team of researchers collected 236 profiles of college-aged people from the United States (Facebook) and Germany (StudiVZ, SchuelerVZ)
As indicated by journal Psychological Science he said, "I think that being able to express personality accurately contributes to the popularity of online social networks in two ways. First, it allows people to let others know who they are and second, it means that profile viewers feel they can trust the information."
