Creating Online Fictions of Ourselves
The most effective young Facebook users, however—the ones who will probably be winners if Facebook turns out to be a model of the future they will inhabit as adults—are the ones who create successful online fictions about themselves.
They tend their doppelgängers fastidiously. They must manage offhand remarks and track candid snapshots at parties as carefully as a politician. Insincerity is rewarded, while sincerity creates a lifelong taint. Certainly, some version of this principle existed in the lives of teenagers before the web came along, but not with such unyielding, clinical precision.
Jaron Lanier, You Are Not A Gadget (2010-01-28)
Notes
Lanier suggests that the most effective users of Facebook will manage their profiles like politicians, constructing a narrative that may have no baring on their real persona.
Watson’s reading
Tags generated by IBM Watson from the text. Percentages are its confidence.
Categories
People, places and things
- Facebook Company