Talk:Lauren Binder
I really enjoyed reading your autobiography because it was honest and inspected each element of your Facebook page in-depth, analyzing how it reflects your actual identity. I think the disclaimer that you wrote in the beginning was a really unique and clever way to state your stance on how you personally consider Facebook use. Because you stated that you use it to mainly focus on having fun and maintain relationships with friends, the rest of your page was very conducive to this assertion. In the sense of how your page describes your personal identity offline relative to having fun, you thoroughly pointed out which parts especially highlight this, such as describing primary and secondary elements such as photos and posts you put on others' walls. I think that you made a really valid point by implying that it's not only what you put on your Facebook that represents you as a person, but also what you choose to leave out or not do says a lot about your character as well. An example of this is when you stated that you don't go overboard in "liking" pages because you are not an overbearing person outside of virtual reality. I think that's an important character trait that is made evident through your lack of Facebook activity in that sense.
One of the best parts about your paper in my opinion is the personal voice that you write with. While still managing to sound professional, you write with personality and opinion. I can vouch for this because I know you know as a friend outside of the academic setting of SI 410. The style with which you write reflects who you are as a person, and therefore makes your piece seem even more genuine. Upon reading the introduction paragraph before the disclaimer, the writing was very sophisticated and I was unsure how the rest of the piece would follow. I was relieved to find that your personal style kicked in and began to add humor while maintaining this sophistication as soon as the disclaimer began. Overall, your autobiography not only gave me great insight as to how your Facebook represents you as a person, but also made me realize and appreciate that it's perfectly ok if Facebook represents more of a social personality then a holistic one, because that is what we make it. Great job! -Lauren Keltz
Lauren, I think you did a good job fulfilling the requirements for the assignment. Your writing style was logical and straight forward enough to clearly communicate your points, although there was some awkward phrasing and incorrect sentence structure. The conclusion was pretty good; I liked the line “Not to say I have multiple personalities, but rather different versions of myself for different contexts.” However, you could've dug a little bit farther into the details of why it is you restrict your conduct to strictly social terms in the realm of Facebook. I know a fair amount of people who use Facebook as a business networking tool, much like a LinkedIn profile. The “Disclaimer” section gave a basic outline for it, but it seems like the bulk of the paper should focus on what's in that short section.
Throughout the rest of the paper, you did well in directly relating all of the elements back to your personal choice in selecting them. Little details like “Religion and political affiliation are controversial topics, which I feel have little relevance to my social identity online so I chose to omit them from my profile” are a good addition, but could use some more attention. What about a topic being controversial makes it not ideal for presenting online? Maybe because you can't explain it directly to those viewing it, so it's hard to escape harsh judgment from those who disagree? Just a thought.
Overall, great job and hooray for being done with this project. -Mitch Kuchenberg
