Faces have fascinated us for time immemorial. Is it any wonder that we are now fascinated with Facebook?
Some say that because we cannot fully control our facial muscles, the human face is an open book of truthfulness. Whatever a person is feeling and experiencing inside is most likely revealed/reflected on the person’s face.
There is also a saying that humans know how – or, at least, try – to mask their emotions. Suggesting that humans (know how to) control and modify their facial expressions in order to hide their true feelings and experiences. In other words, faces can lie.
The ‘management’ of our facial expressions is, no doubt, done by controlling our facial muscles. But the need for it is influenced by – and is a direct result of – our cultural, social and personal backgrounds and our ability to ‘manage’ our emotions. In short, our faces are reflections of our persona.
Image courtesy http://www.amazon.com
If these constructs – i.e. face reflecting truth/lie, face reflecting our persona – be true, I wonder how they influence, create, re-create and reflect our online persona in this digital/internet age. For instance, how true or real-life is our persona on our Facebook page?
To be fair, Facebook gives us the opportunity to be ourselves. In fact, Facebook, Google, Linkedin, Twitter and most social media sites actually encourage us to keep a single online profile. A profile which is a true reflection of our real-life self. After all, we use social media sites to connect with friends, family, colleagues and business associates.
It’s interesting to note that these social media sites use the term ‘profile’ as commonplace, thereby staying clear from the more-difficult term ‘persona’. Perhaps it’s because there’s a strong age-old connection between the words ‘face’ and ‘profile’. Perhaps profiles are more about data which is easier to crunch and analyse than investigating matters of the mind.
Whatever it be, if we were to look deeply enough, we would find that our posts, updates, tweets, photos, videos, fans, follows, resumes, ratings, shares, keyword searches, comments, clicks… and all forms of online interactions and participation do reveal our online persona.
