Turns Out That People Are Actually Pretty Honest About Themselves Online

from the myth-debunked dept

Many people think that when people set up their online social networking profiles, they may be prone to... exaggerating a bit. Given that they can control what they say about themselves, many have posited that those profiles really represent an idealized version of themselves. Yet, perhaps that's not true. Jose Luis Campanello points us to a recent study that found that people actually tend to be pretty honest in their social networking profiles. This really doesn't seem all that surprising when you think about it. I would guess that the results might be a bit different if they looked at dating sites, rather than social networking sites. On a social networking site, you're connecting with a lot of people you probably already really know in real life. As such, it makes little sense to present much of an idealized version of yourself, because your friends already know you -- and might even call you out for being fake. Still, as the report notes, there are still some people who believe that the norm is for people to lie about themselves, when the truth is that, in such realms, people really do tend to be pretty honest. And that's a good thing.

Filed Under: honesty, idealism, internet, online, social networking