Social media provides a new environment that makes it possible to carefully edit the image you want to project of yourself. A study from Lund University in Sweden suggests that many people are prepared to pay to "filter out" unfavorable information.
Economists Håkan Holm and Margaret Samahita have investigated how we curate our social image on the web using game theory.
Previous studies have been conducted on, for example, how anonymity affects our willingness to act pro-socially, and thus our concern for social image. However, the internet and social media now make it possible to edit the image we want to project of ourselves retroactively. One can therefore expect other, -- less impulsive, mechanisms to control this behavior. The purpose of the study was therefore to better understand online behavior.
Each subject participated in a cooperative situation with an anonymous person, and the participants earned real money during the experiment. They could be "good" and cooperate a lot, which is costly, or be less cooperative, which costs less. They then found out that information about how much they actually cooperated could be published online along with their name, but that they could avoid this publication if they paid to censor the information. It turned out that those who cooperated less, valued the censorship highest which meant that information about this group's actions tended to be filtered out.
"That the image people share of themselves is 'softened' on the internet is perhaps not that surprising. What is new is that this is shown under experimental control and that the will to 'filter out' is so strong that one is prepared to pay for it," explains Håkan Holm.
Hakan J. Holm, Margaret Samahita. Curating social image: Experimental evidence on the value of actions and selfies. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2018; 148: 83 DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2018.02.008
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Tuesday March 20 2018, @10:17PM (3 children)
Amen to that, brother. This shit ain't rocket surgery.
Better yet, just be the person you are and let the chips fall where they may. With the caveat that if/when you have interests/desires/peccadilloes that you don't want projected into the public sphere -- just don't project them into the public sphere.
Easy peasy.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday March 21 2018, @12:42AM (2 children)
Well, being the person you are is perfectly acceptable but striving to be better adds a grace note.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday March 21 2018, @12:48AM (1 child)
An excellent point, and well taken.
But the two aren't mutually exclusive, are they?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday March 21 2018, @01:31AM
Not really, no. Hardly anyone has the focus, energy, and willpower to be the best version of themselves all of the time. It's worth putting effort into though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.