Do you think people represent themselves accurately on the internet?

I personally dont lie about myself, who am I lying to? Only me..

I’d like to think most people are honest and ‘being themselves’. How much people disclose about themselves varies from person to person. I tend to be hesitant about disclosing my name and have yet to disclose my surname(s) on any internet forums/sites that aren’t related to work and/or college.

I also think it’s easy to feel like people have misrepresented themselves because you don’t see all aspects of their personality and if you try to form an image of the person, you’re filling in some gaps (guess work) and the finished product might not be that close to reality. That doesn’t mean they’re dishonest, it just means you didn’t guess right when filling in the gaps.

[edit]: I don’t lie, but may refuse to disclose details.

I think this statistic about Second Life is interesting:

Twenty percent of female avatars are actually operated by male users; almost all male avatars are run by men. (from here )

That’s a lot of chicks that are actually dudes…

I don’t lie, but I don’t give everything out either. There is that element of trust. You have to decide whether or not to trust that another person that you are interacting with is telling you the truth, or at least isn’t trying to hurt you. They are trusting you too, when they talk to you. It goes both ways. If you don’t trust people, you’re not going to be able to form relationships with them. It’s the same as in real, physical life, except with a virtual wall to ‘hide’ behind.

I think that the online world is just a reflection of the world at large. Some people lie, some people don’t.

I think you can start a friendship online, but it can’t be be a true friendship, because it is one dimensional. It would be like saying you had become friends with a pen pal. Things like facial expression and body language, the give and take of a conversation, the comfortable silence, a shared experience or activity cannot be part of an online exchange, but are vital to true friendship.

On the other hand, the chance to interact with fellow Flutherites far away in Europe or Japan or Australia seems like a precious gift and would not otherwise be possible.

really?? no way most do not. SOme flat out lie and others well lets just say they are not objective :-)

@softop67
What would be the benefit of misrepresenting yourself on a site like this? I wouldn’t post questions or answers that I didn’t honestly want to ask or answer.

I think that no matter how honest about yourself you are, people project things upon you that they want to see. It happens with acquaintances all the time . Things have a tendency to change with more and more direct interaction.

I think people represent themselves in complicated ways, not just on the internet, but in person. The person you meet is rarely the person you’re actually meeting. This is true in person, but also on the internet. A relationship consists in committments being made and upheld. For example, “I’ll meet you for coffee tomorrow” can result in both of us showing up or neither of us showing up. This then defines the faith we have in the relationship. So, internet relationships have a similar pattern where people agree to do certain things together and then we automatically rate each other based on whether those things were done or not. This is why people can surprise each other so much. “I never would have believed she could cheat on me” because it didn’t fit her previous pattern of known behaviors. Think of “actions speak louder than words” and you won’t be far from somebody’s true character.

But remember this, every person is dynamic! The person you meet today is not really the person you meet tomorrow. There is a causal relationship in time that connects them, but everybody changes. We can see this as a positive benefit of human relationship.

Good luck.

I have always represented myself on the internet honestly, after all I am the reincarnation of Mahatma Gandhi destined to enlighten all you punk-ass-bitches. This time around I’m going to lead a Puerto Rican independence movement so that son-of-a-bitch who gets paid a lot to do absolutely nothing will actually have to do some work to earn his paycheck.

Unfortunately, world peace is still a couple rebirths away so don’t sell your stock in Lockheed Martin just yet.

who cares. im a high school dropout and recovering drug addict. i do not have hiv though. how you love that?

It may not seem possible for me to be Bob Marley, but I am.

Its easy to lie outside of the real world, but the “reward” in doing so is a hollow one, and liars eventually get found out. No need to front,we all might see an internet friend in the real world as some point.

I’m the inventor of the internet and currently run a company that lubricates key components of today’s internet. I can tell you based on this vast experience that 66.67% of people lie about themselves on the internet. Note that I rounded to the nearest 100th.