Faceplant: Impression (Mis)management in Facebook Status Updates

Abstract

While recent research examined the impressions projected by users of Social Network Sites through their relatively static online profiles, the addition of status updates to Facebook offers the opportunity to study a more fluid type of impression management. In this paper, we take a first look at data collected with a custom application designed to capture the impressions both “given” and “given off” by a user’s status updates. We show that while users generally succeed at presenting a positive image of themselves, they are only partially aware of how they are coming across and tend to underestimate the strength of the impressions they foster. This is particularly prevalent in the case of self-importance, giving credence to the notion that projecting an inflated sense of self can be a risk in a world where impressions are formed based on “micro updates.”