Is that really her?

We communicate with each other from behind a computer screen in the virtual world. How do I know if you are really what you say you are?

I would say almost everyone of us has a personal profile on at least one social networking site. Social networking sites like Friendster and Facebook are great tools for keeping in touch and reuniting with old friends that we have lost touch with. But how many of us are really what we seem to be in the virtual world?

Who wouldn't like to be known as the 'cool', the hip and happening guy, the popular one with many friends and so on?

"It's like one way traffic, you write what you want other people to see, and maybe what you want them and yourself to believe. Comments people leave on your profile can be moderated before being approved", one of my friends said. A quick survey with some of my friends showed that most of them feel that people in general are not all that 'real' on sites like Facebook and Friendster.

In the profiles that we created for ourselves online, we can control what other people can see, we only put up photos that are nice, or photoshopped them. We put up gorgeous profile/display photos. We can 'untag' pictures our friends put up which we feel are less than perfect.

Xiaxue, a Singapore blogger, photoshops her photos before putting them up, but she readily declares that she does that.

I came across an article that says research suggests that people who use social networking sites can be categorized into 5 groups: Alpha Socialisers, Attention Seekers, Followers, Faithfuls, Functionals.

I think there is another type of people, the Collectors. These are the people who go around collecting 'friends', even though they may not know them personally much less see them before. One such example is Celeste Chen and Nicole Chen, who are sisters. They have 16000 friends over 11 Friendster accounts.

16000 friends, I wonder if they remember all their names! But than again, who am I kidding? My heart skips a beat whenever I see a 1 friend request when I log in to my Facebook account. Having more 'friends' would of course lead other people to think that you are really popular and in turn boost ur own ego.

And then there is the question of who or what constitutes a 'friend'? Is the friend someone whom you have known for a few years or someone you have seen in school but never talked to? Do you approve of them as a friend if they add you when you have never talked to them?

I believe some of us protray ourselves differently online because that is where we can be who we wish we can be and we want others to see it and believe it.