Many interesting phenomena of have arisen from the popular use of facebook, such as, the idea of "click-through activism". It might seem as though it's a good thing that it is so easy to join a worthy cause because there are always staggering numbers of people who claim they support the cause. But it also means that most of them are not as dedicate to the cause as those people who would have actually made the effort to join the group even if it wasn't so readily available on facebook. In these cases the number of people who are actually in the group does not equal the effectiveness of the group. People are able to join with just the click of a mouse, but then they don't actively participate in the group. This raises many interesting questions about why people join these groups and causes on facebook. Do they join out of some form of guilt? Do they not even think about and just accept any request that comes their way on facebook? Do they think it will make them seem "culturally sensitive"? Because we all know that once you join a group it's going to show up on every body's news feed.
This brings me to what I find most fascinating about facebook and other such websites where you create an online profile of yourself. This gives people a chance to pick and choose what parts of themselves they want the world to see. What profile pictures do people choose to put up? What status update do they choose to put up? What are they going to put as their activities and interests? Is it even a true representation of reality? Is there a disconnect between a person's physical self and their online self? I think that people to become very good at sort of subconsciously censoring what they are putting up online for people to see. People try and fit the complex person that they really are into this certain format that isn't really a fair representation of who they are. And maybe a lot of times their profile ends up being more of an image of who they want to be.
And then there are those times that having everybody see what you're up to on facebook, gets you in trouble...
Don't let facebook ruin your life. Real life is hard enough as it is.
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To your question on profile pictures, I tend to choose pictures that I find interesting. Though I try to make sure that they are appropriate in case family, work or some stranger were to see them. As for the status, I tend not to do a status update, but once and a while when I am bored I will throw something up there. When I talk about my activities and interests I just tell the truth because I like what I do, and figure if at the very least someone does not like me for that then truly do I care to get to know that person? I do believe there is a disconnect between the physical and internet selves that people portray. The reasoning is that it is almost impossible to be able to be completely true and open when dealing with a medium open to everyone that has internet.
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