Talk:Jad Raad

Great job! I really like the intro to your avatar project. It sets a tone, which you continue to have for the rest of your paper. I thought it was very interesting how you referred to your profile as your 10-month old self. That statement alone tells a great deal about your use of Facebook.

I also found it very interesting how/why you discussed all 8 friends that pop up when you visit your page. Statistically, this is a good representation of your overall cohort of friends. I would have liked to know a little bit more about why you decide to keep all these friends around if you actually don’t talk with them. Is it because you just don’t care, you don’t use Facebook enough for it to make a difference?

In your “What does it all mean?” section, I like how you tried to look your profile from multiple perspectives. I would like to know a little bit more why you decide to not be an active member of the Facebook community. You discuss that you prefer to keep in contact with them in real life, which is a good reason, but is it because you find that Facebook does not offer the best way for people to communicate?

Like I said before, I like the tone of your writing. I think you keep it personal, but at the same time, you have a professional feel to it, which I like. You did a good job talking about your avatar vs. the real you! I think that it would be beneficial to add something that says what differentiates you from your Facebook. Good job and I enjoyed reading about you! -Jackie

Hello,

I've really enjoyed reading what you've written about yourself throughout your post here. I feel you're very genuine in describing who you are in an online environment, and what's influenced your decisions in constructing that identity. As far as being truthful to yourself, I find everything you've written to be perfectly believable, and really enjoyed that you took as unbiased of a view as possible when reviewing your profile. It made it much easier, as someone who doesn't know you, to follow along when you disembodied yourself, and walked through what felt like a third person in the room. It also helped me connect with what you were saying, because I treat Facebook much the same way you do, and what you have written made me think about my own Facebook usage, and whether I felt like I divulged in totality when writing my own post. I particularly like how you emphasize the fact that you care far more about people in real life knowing "how you are" versus those looking over the internet. It gives me the sense that you're very down-to-earth, and are completely comfortable letting your profile be devoid of superfluous outside influences. Since you use only the features you want to use, and respond to others in a manner that is most convenient to you, I felt that you really represented your lack of interest in many of the features of Facebook. You were explicit in mentioning that it's completely non-representative of your present self, though it may be a "best guess", which gave me the impression you were being truthful because you knew that there's more to you than what you put online, and were openly admitting that.

If I had to put forth any criticism, it would be "What caused you to change your Facebook habits from those in the past?" You make mention of the fact that you "used Facebook in the more common sense" in the past, what has made you change from that state to this one? I think it'd be interesting if you would share some insight into what's caused your real life identity to disconnect more form your online/Facebook identity. Other than that, I feel you were very true to yourself in you post.

Your writing style was very easy and cheery to follow. You gave a good narrative of what you believed, what parts of Facebook you identify with, and how you've made use of the site. Other than some sentence rephrasing where specific words come up more than once, I think your flow is very clean and easy to read. Your voice is very objective and analytical, which made thinking through what you're saying a very logical and simple process. I think you did a great job, and made a very good analysis of your Facebook identity!

Cheers, Michael Ives