Social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Orkut are now estimated to have more than 700 million users worldwide. As users can create any profile of themselves they choose, you might expect them to portray themselves in the best possible way. When putting up a profile, it would be reasonable for them to present positive images, choose classy interests, and carefully express their thoughts so as to appear more intelligent than in real life. But according to recent research, this is not the case. Far from presenting themselves in a pleasing way, most users’ profiles reflect their true personalities, and reveal both psychological and natural physical weaknesses.

Research was carried out on 250 Facebook users who filled in a personality questionnaire. Results were compared with the same people’s Facebook profiles. The survey set out to assess not only the participants’ actual personality, but their “ideal” personality--in other words, what kind of person they would be if they actually possessed all their ideal characteristics. These results were then compared with the participants’ Facebook profiles. What emerged was astonishing: far from being idealized versions of themselves, people’s online profiles roughly resemble what they were really like. Their profiles accurately reflected how agreeable, outgoing, hardworking and sociable they were in real life.

It’s not entirely clear why online profiles display users’ personalities so accurately. It could be that users want to portray themselves as they really are, or it could be that people attempt to present an ideal image of themselves but in fact fail to do so. One thing seems clear: social networking sites can in no way be considered a false online world that is idealized and removed from reality; rather, they are simply another way in which people choose to interact with each other.

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