White Paper 

           
"What's on Your Mind?"
 
Elisabeth Giovene, Megan Norris, Jorie Rao, Rebecca Romeo
Rowan University
Technology and the Future of Writing
 
ABSTRACT
 
Facebook is a popular way to connect to the world, or cyber world. Facebook's popular "what’s
on your mind?" status bar is a way people create themselves whether they realize it or not. The
statuses users post up can be used to create an online identity based off of what they choose to
write or based off of how people read them. As a group we have conducted a research project to
see how these identities are created using only Facebook statuses. We chose to focus on the
status updates of 20 Facebook users and divided their statuses into categories; phatic, gossip, call
for sympathy and philosophical. These four categories create an identity for the people because
they are all personal claims or personal feelings. Each category gives the person reading it a
certain impression. As people post up their statuses, other users such as our group read them and
make small judgments of character about each person. We found in researching that the actual
individual statuses were not important. Our focus was the way they are perceived as a whole, not
as individual statuses. Some of our judgments included: "Oh she seems like she is a complainer"
or "Well she is definitely a happy, positive person" or "Wow he is very creative and sure of
himself". These are judgments based off of all of their complied statuses. Our findings were that
the users we chose, without realizing it, created themselves an identity online. However, these
online identities may not reflect who they are in a face to face conversation.

 
Keywords: Internet identity, Facebook statuses, Ecologies 

1. Identity/ Intro
Most people have heard the clichés “Don’t judge a book by its cover” and “First impressions are
lasting impressions,” both of these sayings deal with how one is perceived by others. They imply
that one’s identity is socially shaped. In this sense social identity is created through an in-person
interaction between the one being judged and the society judging that person. However, what
happens when all the markers of identity are no longer visible?  Such as identity markers like
clothing, attractiveness, tone of voice, social status, occupation and physical build. This question
is important to ask because identities are no longer solely shaped through a one on one
interaction. With new technological innovations, namely those provided via the internet, people
are creating internet identities. While these identities are also socially shaped, the markers that
shape these identities are not the same. Instead of judging a look or an outfit, the things they say
become most important. We must consider what it is that shapes our perception of others when
their identities are projected through the internet. How does the relationship between technology
and users play a role in helping shape this identity? 
1.1 Internet Identity
In Information Ecologies: Using Technology with Heart, Bonnie A. Nardi and Vicki L. O’Day
(1999) are also interested in the relationship between users and technology. In order to describe
this relationship, they use metaphors. They believe that ecologies can accurately represent how
this relationship works. However, before they continue with their ecology theory, they note other
metaphors that have attempted to describe the user/technology relationship. Some other
metaphors include technology as a tool, text and system. They observe these theories because,
according to Nardi and O’Day, “Metaphors matter... Each of these metaphors is ‘right,’ in some
sense; each captures some important characteristics of technology in society. Each suggests
different possibilities for action and change’ (p. 27). 
In our study, we decided that technology as a text was the most effective metaphor to describe
the relationship between users and their technology, namely in creating an internet identity. The
reason for our choice was because the close proximity between people is lost through the
internet, and text is often the link that continues to hold people together. Without in-person
interactions, there is a distance created between the person identified and the internet community
classifying them. Nardi and O’Day claim that the reason for this is because “a reader’s
construction is developed in a cultural setting that may be quite different from the writer's.” They
claim that the implication of this is that there is a gap created between the writer and reader. 
They continue, “The writer cannot command the unknown reader to develop one interpretation
or another. He can only make suggestions within the language and structures of the text. He will
succeed to the extent that his suggestions are intelligible and appealing to his readers” (p. 31).
We felt that the text metaphor was appropriate for our study because language and presentation
of text are often the most used forms of communication in internet communities. How one
deploys language in an internet community gives other members a way to define that person.
Like Nardi and O’Day, we agree that technology acts “as a kind of stand-in for other people who
are not physically present” (p. 32).
1.2 Facebook Statuses
We decided to observe the identities created in the internet community known as Facebook.
Facebook is a popular social networking site that all of us were familiar with. We felt that since
we were observing how users’ language shaped others’ perceptions of them, status updates
would produce the most data from our observations. Also, status updates are typically a user’s
means for communicating and projecting their identities into an internet community.
 
2. Research Methods
In order to determine how Facebook allows its users to create their internet identities, we decided
to observe the practices users implemented when projecting these identities through this social
networking site. Each researcher observed five members of Facebook totaling in twenty
Facebook members. There were seventeen females and three males. The users' ages ranged from
eighteen to thirty.  The users' demographics were not considered as a factor here. The reason for
this is because we decided to focus only on the users identities through their statuses. Through
our own experiences with Facebook, we concluded that the most observable patterns of identity
were visible in users' status updates. We collected the users' status updates for one week. We
believed that how these users deployed specific language created what we observed to be an
internet identity. We classified the language used into categories that we felt were an appropriate
representation of the range of status updates typically found on Facebook today. Once all the
data was collected by each of us, we shared the results with one another. While analyzing the
data, we consider specific questions. These included: How does the diction used create this
identity? How does the technology act as a translator? Who are the users' audiences? Are the
users' profiles public or private?
2.1 Status Update Categories
As stated earlier, we categorized the users' statuses. These categories were created based on what
we believed were an accurate condensation of the wide range of updates we have observed in
contemporary uses of Facebook. There were a total of four categories. The first category was
labeled 'Phatic.' Phatic status updates were identified generally as random posts that had no
goals, or were a verbalization of the users' actions at the time they were writing their posts.
Phatic posts may consist of language like, “I'm making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich,”
“after work: Recliner, brewskie. book,” or “drinking at the bar wit my ppl.” Another category
was labeled 'Not my Business.' This category was characterized by the post's lack of relevance to
the user posting it. For example, these posts were generally gossip or references to other people.
The next category was labeled 'Call for help/Sympathy.' These posts were identified by how the
language attempted to appeal to the audiences’ emotions. These posts were generally egocentric,
and not a call for help in the sense that they requested activism on the behalf of others. Some
examples might include: “Midterms, ahhh,” “Twelve hrs of work, then class all nite," or
"Babysitter, anyone...PLEASE.” The last category was labeled ‘Philosophical.’ This type of
status update was identified as a witty thought or quote.

3. Results 
Our findings, as seen in Figure. 1 indicated a higher percentage of phatic updates amongst the
users we researched. The total amount of phatic updates between all twenty followed users was
94 updates. The category with the second highest amount of updates was Call for
Help/Sympathy with 44 updates, followed by 30 philosophical updates. The Not my Business
category only had 12 status updates. 
 Call for Help/Sympathy

Not my Business

Philosophical

Phatic

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Figure 1 Status Update Totals

 
4. Analysis
 While analyzing our data we found that phatic updates and call for help/sympathy created most
of our users identify. When the user talks about themselves, their days and what is going on in
their lives it gives the Facebook community a "sense" of who they are. Our group made
judgments of the people we followed based off of how often they complained, how often they
talked about school, how often they talked about social activities and how often they talked about
their daily routine. It is important that each status together gave our group an idea of their
identity because if we went off of single status updates our findings would be different. For
example, some of our users had one status that talked about their day sucking, which is a call for
help/sympathy. All of the other statuses seemed upbeat and happy, in turn our perception of that
person was based off of all the statuses as a whole not just the one sad status. This is why our
focus changed from specific statuses to all of the statuses as a whole.
 
In conducting this research, our intention was to observe the practices of the users by analyzing
how the language and diction they used shaped their internet identity. However, during our
analysis, we found that the user's identity was not our focus. Our focus switched to the
community’s interpretations of an identity. The reason for this was because we lacked a
universal agreement about what identities users projected. For example, one post read, "woke up,
went to my first class, came home, ate lunch, took a nap, and am leaving for my second class all
while K.E. is still sleeping from the night before."  The researcher who recorded this data
categorized this post as phatic. However, the group analysis found that the tone of the status
could be interpreted as either phatic or call for help. We learned that the community members
that judge a person are very subjective, and do not create the same identities for the same users.
Which brings us back to Nardi and O'Day's claim that, “The writer cannot command the
unknown reader to develop one interpretation or another. He can only make suggestions within
the language and structures of the text". There were consistencies in our interpretations, but
mainly in regards to misused syntax and diction. We tended to disregard the misuse or alterations
of the language. This may be because all of us were used to the generational adaptations of the
language. Had one of us been from an older generation there may have been inconsistencies in
our interpretations. Yet, our common experiences with these adaptations allowed us to ignore the
misused language. Other personal experiences shaped how we interpreted the overall identity.
  
5. Conclusion/Discussion 
Although the focus of the researchers was originally to observe how Facebook allows its users to
shape their identity, our research and analysis has led us to discover otherwise.  Surprisingly,
most of the importance was found in the community's interpretation of the user's status updates
and how that forms the community's view of the user. Even though we did not incorporate the
demographics of the user's identity (i.e., sex, age, sexual orientations, political views, religion,
etc.), we were still able to develop a basic understanding of the user. Had we incorporated these
demographics into our study, perhaps we would have found the users to be more defined
individuals. Also, our study provides evidence for further discussion on technology metaphors.
While we looked at technology as a text , Nardi and O'Day's (1999) ecology theory is evident
here. We looked at the individual's creation of one's identity in a community, but we neglected
the actual community influences. In a technological world, it is not plausible to have autonomy.
While one can shape what is projected to others, they cannot guide others interpretation.

References:

Nardi, B. and O’Day, V. (1999). Information Ecologies: Using Technology with Heart. (pp. 25-
58) Cambridge: MIT Press.