Outcome

For this exercise I went on Facebook and collected 70 of my friends' profile pictures to analyze. I decided on Facebook over other social media networks because I have the largest amount of friends on Facebook. I pasted them all onto an Excel document, and after tallying up some basic information about them, I decided that I wanted to analyze the purpose behind profile pictures. 61 out of the 70 profile pictures, or 87%, included the person behind the profile in them. This makes sense because compared to other social media platforms, Facebook is less about anonymity because it is often used to connect with people you have actually met. However, there is more to profile pictures than just showing what you look like.

Below you can see the multiple characteristics of profile pictures that I tallied up. All of the friends behind the profiles I analyzed are in my age group, and most if not all are students. I noticed that even though I think these people spend more time inside than they do outside, more people took their profile picture outside. I guess it's because showing something other than their everyday repetitive life makes them seem like they have a more interesting lifestyle.  

I made a graph of the main messages I identified behind a profile picture. A large amount, 18, included something that relates to their interests in their profile picture, which was anything from a musical instrument to a robot. These profile pictures seemed to push the idea that they were interesting people who had a hobby. 9 were for some cause, such as the rainbow filter for support of marriage equality, or for advertising an event held by an organization they were a part of, indicating they had affiliation with an opinion or a group. 11 were taken at some sort of event, like a party, and 13 with friends, all which show off that they have a social life.  11 were pictures that looked like they were professionally taken, or were particularly nice, which presented them as good-looking individuals who care about what they look like.  10 incorporated some sort of humor meant to make the viewer think that they're clever or funny. 6 were of some sort of artwork, of which all but 2 were done by someone other than the person themselves, and seemed to show off their "taste". 

All of these profile pictures seemed like an advertisement of some aspect of the person's personality or lifestyle to make them appear more interesting, human, better-looking, etc., all to show off. But this makes sense because with social media you can craft your own image, and be your own PR to display all the aspects of yourself that you think are positive.  Going through all the profile pictures reminded me of why I hated going on Facebook: all these pictures of peoples' "perfect" lives make it seem like they're well-dressed and attractive and have exciting adventures every day. This couldn't be further from the truth, but I can't help but compare it to my own life.  

I can't deny that these different characteristics of profile pictures do show something more about a person than a mugshot would though. What's in the profile picture, where it was taken, and the intentions behind it, all show a sliver of personality and can be used to guess what they value. Of course, it could all be calculated and not accurate at all, but at least you can find out what they want you to think of them.