Day 6: What Your Facebook Profile Picture Says About You

Wish 6: Real Friends

Try this. Use the title of this blog to search in Google. What you will get is tons of pages about how so-called experts interpret your Facebook profile picture. Here is a sampling.

There is a whole category for 16 year olds who take the picture of their reflection in a bathroom mirror. They try to appear to be too hot to handle. One blog calls them desperate because a friend didn't even oblige to take their pictures.

People in close-up views, hiding a part of the face, are considered trying to look mysterious. Black and white pictures = artistic wanna-be. Pictures of persons as younger, or even babies = nostalgic, wanting to relive the good old days. Pictures of their kids = family guy or girl, whose recent accomplishment is changing a nasty diaper. Picture of cat = girl without a boyfriend. Picture of dog = guy without a boyfriend. Wedding picture = "Look, girlfriend, I'm taken and you're not!" (No decent husband will post the wedding picture).

The most comprehensive roadmap is from Fast Company. I'm an engineering graduate, so I like this graphical representation.

The regular picture, from the waist up, looking at the camera, and smiling - is probably the safest. That makes you a regular, well-adjusted person. Then again, it is "boring".

None of these interpretations are flattering. Maybe we shouldn't put faces on Facebook. Maybe I should un-face.

There is so much fuss over the profile picture. I've heard these said about the profile picture. "Can you take my picture with the background blurred?" "I want look like..." "I'm too fat here. Photoshop me to look thin." "I can't find a good photo, let's just put in a graduation picture / a cartoon / our pet / our kids / our family / our whole high school batch..."

What this tells me is, maybe, a lot of us are just too insecure about our appearance. We shouldn't have to worry about first impressions. After all, we are 'friending' only our friends, who accept us for who we are. Right?

But wait, is that counter of 1028 friends really correct? Let's examine some statistics. The average number of friends in Facebook is 130. However, kids 13-16 have on average 450 friends. 22-year olds have over 1000. As the Facebook user's age gets higher, the number of friends drop. The average of 130 is common in people in their thirties. By the age of fifty and higher, the average number of friends should be under 100.

So, is there a correlation between the fabulousness of the profile picture and the number of friends? I doubt it. What I am concerned about is that younger people are accepting and asking to 'friend' people they barely know.

Is there a numbers race among young people? Are they accepting any friend request? Are they inviting any  connection of friends of friends they can find? Aren't they concerned that these hundreds of friends include really malicious people who are out to defraud them, or rob their house when their status says, "Sunbathing in Waikiki! Woohoo!"?

I have 200 Facebook friends. I also have over 30 requests to be friends from people I don't know, or hardly know.

I would like to make three important statements here, that I hope the 1000-Friend'ers will consider:

1. I don't mind what Facebook profile picture you use, as long as I recognize I have befriended the right person. You look good to me no matter what you look like in your picture, because you are my friend.
2. I am careful not to accept all friend requests, even from people I just met. It is not to be aloof or anything. I just want to get to know you better in person so that our online connection will be valuable.
3. I don't want my friends to be part of a numbers game, because that would mean I am just one of those numbers in your game.

I wish people would make real friends, whether it is online or in person.