One point that Lev Manovich makes in his chapter titled Trending: The Promises and Challenges of Big Social Data that I found particularly interesting was his second objection to the “collapse of the deep data/surface-data divide” regarding the authenticity of interactions in social networks and the image presented by people online. He states that what people post and their participation online may not be an accurate or exact portrayal of their true personality and behavior. That may seem fairly obvious on the surface; however, when choosing to analyze and explore the vast amounts of data that can be accumulated through tweets, Facebook, Flickr, and Instagram photos, social network posts, etc., Manovich suggests that we bear in mind the data should be considered an “interface people present to the world,” not a clear view into people’s ideas, thoughts, and actions, and analyze the data accordingly.
The extent to which people curate their public persona online varies depending on the site, from a likely large extent on dating sites to a smaller extent on Twitter. But modifying our public personas online to such a large extent in some cases, I believe, mitigates one main purpose of social media, which is, according to Alice Marwick’s article, saving and exploring data about ourselves and others. Presenting fictional or exaggerated images or posts does not create the same level of discovery and connection between yourself and others on social media as your real images and posts do. Also, we may still have control over what we post, like, tweet, and so on, but companies and the government can still glean useful data from our cultivated online personas.
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