Putting their Best Foot Forward: Emotional Disclosure on Facebook

Facebook has become a widely used online self-representation and communication platform. In this research, we focus on emotional disclosure on Facebook. We conducted two studies, and results from both self-report and observer rating show that individuals are more likely to express positive relative to negative emotions and present better emotional well-being on Facebook than in real life. Our study is the first to demonstrate impression management on Facebook through emotional disclosure. We discuss important theoretical and practical implications of our study.Published Versio

Digital Photographic Practices as Expressions of Personhood and Identity:Variations Across School Leavers and Recent Retirees

Over the last two decades, digital photography has been adopted by young and old. Many young adults easily take photos, share them across multiple social networks using smartphones, and create digital identities for themselves consciously and unconsciously. Is the same true for older adults? As part of a larger mixed-methods study of online life in the UK, we considered digital photographic practices at two life transitions: leaving secondary school and retiring from work. In this paper, we report on a complex picture of different kinds of interactions with visual media online, and variation across age groups in the construction of digital identities. In doing so, we argue for a blurring of the distinctions between Chalfen’s ‘Kodak Culture’ and Miller and Edwards’ ‘Snaprs’. The camera lens often faces inwards for young adults: tagged ‘Selfies’ and images co-constructed with social network members commonly contribute to their digital identities. In contrast, retirees turn the camera’s lens outwards towards the world, not inwards to themselves. In concluding, we pay special attention to the digital social norms of co-creation of self and balancing convenience and privacy for people of varying ages, and what our findings mean for the future of photo-sharing as a form of self-expression, as today’s young adults grow old and retire

Personality in faces: Implicit associations between appearance and personality

How accurate are the spontaneous trait inferences made to faces? Here we measured implicit associations between facial appearance and personality traits, using faces conveying an objective appearance of Extraversion and Agreeableness. In the standard or “uncrossed” conditions of Experiment 1, we found that descriptions of high and low Agreeableness and Extraversion were spontaneously and accurately associated with their objective trait appearance. In Experiment 2, to test the specificity of this effect, we “crossed” the IATs, pairing faces conveying high and low Extraversion with words describing characteristics of high and low Agreeableness, and the reverse. We found evidence for associations specific to objective appearance of Agreeableness, and a general halo effect relating to Extraversion. We conclude that spontaneous assessment of personality from faces can be accurate, and can be based on trait‐specific as well as general visual cues

Datafied Childhoods: Data Practices and Imaginaries in Children’s Lives

What are the consequences of growing up in a datafied world in which social interaction is increasingly dependent on digital media and everyday life is shaped by algorithmic predictions? How is datafication being normalized in children’s everyday life? What are the technologies, contexts and relations that enhance children’s datafication? What are the meanings of data practices for parents, teachers, and children themselves? These are some of the questions that Mascheroni and Siibak address in Datafied childhoods: Data practices and imaginaries in children’s lives. When the data-driven business model emerged twenty years ago, we could not have imagined how pervasive data extraction would have become in the context of everyday life, including the “institutional triangle” of children’s lives (the home, the school and the playground). Today, the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified the datafication of everyday life and our reliance on data-relations. Yet, we still know little about the nature, meanings and consequences of the data practices in which children, and the adults around them, engage. This book tries to fill in this gap in two ways. First, drawing on the authors’ knowledge of children and media studies and their own research on children’s, families’ and teachers’ interactions with multiple technologies (IoT and IoToys, artificial intelligence, algorithms, robots) in different contexts (home, school and play), it promotes a non-media-centric and child-centered approach. Second, in so doing it encourages further scholarly inquiry into the everyday as the analytical entry point to understand how datafication is transforming parenting, education, childhood and thereby the children