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From this exercise, I learned that while you are able to form some sort of expectation about the appearance of your profile photos on Facebook (as evidenced by the handful of surprised/ironic responses), it's difficult to have that persona overwhelm the expected social standards and the impression you make in real life.  This insight was gleamed from the significantly larger number of likes on this profile picture than the others in conjunction with the fact that the photo is more representative with how I carry myself offline. In addition to this, the fact that my profile picture was so radically different from my previous photos seems to suggest that Facebook's like system is used less as an indicator of approval or qualitative evaluation, but more as a indicator of a instant reaction to something. Both of these components illustrate a social "rule", as Goffman would put it, of Facebook.

Though for the most part the study was successful in gleaning new information, there are a handful of confounding variables which I would like to eliminate. Foremost, the fact that my profile picture resembled an internet meme meant I was less able to determine the specific reasons for the responses to the profile picture. This is because likes could have come from a humored response on the user's part, whereas had I used a generic stock photo, that response would be less likely. If I were to try again, I'd instead use a generic stock graduation photo, something which might have drawn in more puzzled responses.


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