Facebook identity

Facebook 'stalking'... Who hasn't?!
Throughout my time on Facebook I've been doing quite some 'stalking' as well. Actually, Facebook stalking isn't actual stalking... (Unless you DO more than go through people's wall and pictures and notes and whatever info they have provided themselves). Just for the record, I never actually stalked anyone! ;)

Well, let's get to my main point.
As I'm quite familiar with the Facebook stalking, I noticed a few things. First of all, you may think you know someone better if you've seen their Facebook page... Which is not all that true. Sure, you can see that someone goes to parties, joins a hockey club, has many friends, posts a lot about their work, and so on.
The thing is, if someone does NOT post about parties, sport clubs, books, movies, work, whatever, they can still be into it. If I don't post about sports, that doesn't mean I'm not doing anything related to sports. So you can't but gather given information, you can't speculate at all. Also, there's different reasons someone might add for example a sports club to their 'likes'. Do they play, do they support, does someone they know play or support, do they like their posts, do they like someone who likes their posts? Not to mention people aren't always truthful on the internet (although this thing doesn't seem to be happening on Facebook a lot).
So, how would you know them?!

From the bits of information you can gather on someone's Facebook page, you can form some basic idea of what kind of person someone is. Here is the thing: whatever picture you paint of them, the only thing you are actually doing is putting them into a box...
Here are some example boxes: Bookworm without many friends, party animal whose ability to think is probably negatively affected by alcohol, sporty person who likes to travel, person who is obsessed with going to the gym and maintaining their body, selca king/queen whose immense fan base likes every single duckface photo they upload. And these are just a few of the boxes.
Admit it, we all know at least one person to fit in each of the above boxes. Which also immediately shows that the boxes do not define a person's being; they are merely a summary of 'symptoms', not even characteristics. Yet on Facebook it's only these kind of symptoms that are visible.

So next time you go Facebook stalking, remember you only see whatever traces someone left for you to see. Don't judge, just enjoy! ;) ㅋㅋㅋ

~~~~~X~~~x~~~X~~~~~
*~Maria