What Your Facebook Activity Says About You
chaitra krishnanMA (Journalism & Mass Communication) Experience: 5 yearsChaitra has a triple main bachelor’s degree in journalism, communicative English, and economics from St. Aloysius College, Mangalore, and a master’s degree in journalism and mass communication from St... more
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Can you remember the number of times you open your Facebook and other social media accounts in a day to check for notifications or simply scroll through the feed? Well, we’re sure most of us can’t keep a count on it. Scrolling is the first thing we do the moment we wake up and the last thing we do before we go to sleep. Social media has become something that’s more than just a medium to communicate and connect. We see different generations, ranging from grandparents to any eight-year-olds around you; they all have profiles on Facebook. In fact, your maid, gardener, and the lady who comes home to sell vegetables too will probably have a Facebook account.
Having said that, how many of you have wondered why your friends behave a particular way on social media? For example, we all have that friend who is quite good at picking fights on social media. And of course, we have friends who post pictures of every single thing that’s going on in their lives. If you haven’t noticed yet, start today. A person’s social media actions can say a lot about their personality and beliefs. Pretty similar to the old saying “The face is the mirror of the mind,” Facebook too is the mirror of your character.
Now, let’s take a look at different types of social media behaviors and what you can understand about the user’s real character from them.
The Stalker
Agree or not. This is what most of our parents do. These creepy characters hardly have any content on their accounts. Nonetheless, they are experts in checking out what others are doing. You’ll find this person connecting with friends of friends and their friends, whose information can be dug out using special stalking skills. These are the people who live on their mobile phones and they often gossip a lot.
The Passive-Aggressive Commenter
This person comments on every post, be it their friend’s or something that’s informative. Known for their negative comments, these people are easily offended by other people’s posts and tend to argue a lot more than necessary. Someone who behaves this way online is probably the same way in real life too — aggressive all the time.
The “Cool” One
These are the most annoying and, well, funny ones on social media. They try to pretend to be uber-cool by posting things that will praise themselves. Well, that totally negates our idea of cool, doesn’t it? Such people want to be noticed and probably are rather lonely. Since they don’t get the validation that they want from their circles in real life, they try to be popular online. This includes random pictures, TikTok videos, and posts with fancy check-ins.
The Attention Seeker
This person shares everything that ever went viral. They want to prove to others that they are up-to-date and they know things too. While some of them share genuinely important stuff, the rest are just bluffing. They will share anything and everything that’s trending, even if they have no clue of what the post is about. A political problem, a movie star in trouble, or a climate change-related post — they’ll surely them, but trust us, they don’t know anything about the issue.
The One Who Never Posts Any Pictures Of Themselves
If you visit their profile, you’ll see many random pictures, of toys, sceneries, coffee mugs, dogs, birds, and even their relatives. But you probably won’t get to see a decent picture of the owner of the account. These people are shy and quite reserved. They are quite interesting to talk to, but they hardly want to come out in the open just like they feel in real. There’s a possibility that these people have low self-esteem, especially regarding their appearance.
The Negative And Needy
This is your dukhi aatma friend. They’ve probably had a breakup or are going through a rough phase in life. And, they’ll keep posting negative thoughts and preach about life like a monk. While some of them are quite nice to read, we know when it gets too much to take. If this person is your friend, he/she is probably reaching out for help indirectly. Try texting them or arrange for a meet up if you can, so that your friend feels better.
The “Model”
We know that professional models have really colorful Facebook and other social media profiles. But, the same goes for those who are internet models. While some of these “models” try to gain attention from people who can help them get into the industry and build a portfolio, the rest just want more likes and comments. They probably do not even qualify as models and are just rich enough to own a good camera. These people are true attention seekers and they’ve got no interest in real modeling.
The Twin
These are the people who have two accounts. One with their real name and the other one with a fake name. You can imagine the sinister things they use the fake account for. Following sexually explicit accounts, threatening comments, and following random people and trying to text them are some of their favorite activities. If you do this, please don’t!
Since these are quite generalized thoughts, it would be wrong to judge anyone based on these criteria. It’s important to know that while social media portrays a particular image of someone, the person can be totally different in real life. But, certain things like helping those who sound low in their posts is something that we can all do, and make social media something worth investing our time in. So, how does your Facebook activity stats look like?
