(Not) judging by one’s Facebook page

There’s so much that we reveal about ourselves in our Facebook page: what we think are our most attractive photos (profile pictures), who our friends are (Friends list), and even our favorite sports team, music bands, and presidential candidates.

Even the distance we jog, or the music we listen to, is in plain sight to anyone who bothers to look. When our future employers check our profile pages, they will have a lot of ideas about our likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, even before they interview us. In 2013, a

UK-based survey showed that almost 45 percent of employers reported using social media to search for and screen potential candidates, and this number is likely to grow in the future.

This “screening” happens in everyday life as well: Many young people have developed the skill of “researching” people by looking up their Facebook profiles. By the time two people actually meet in person, it’s entirely plausible that they already know each other’s favorite foods, travel history, and even relationships past and present.

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But people’s social media accounts are not who they are. These pages are what the sociologist Erving Goffman would call “performances”: Consciously or subconsciously, the way we present ourselves in social media caters to an audience, imagined or real.

This works very well as a theatrical metaphor: Just as actors wear much makeup to look their very best in front of their audiences, we, too, project the best image of ourselves by selecting the best photos. Hence, out of a hundred photos of one’s self, only the best ones will be chosen, edited and posted.

Beyond the way we present our physical appearances, however, Goffman’s point is that we also project a favorable image of our lives—hence our bias toward the new, the beautiful, and the interesting. People post photos of the turmeric rice or squid ink rice they encounter in a restaurant, but not the plain rice that they eat every day. We post how many kilometers we ran in the morning, but not how much we ate afterwards. We post lofty ideas and quotable quotes—but not mundane thoughts and everyday worries. We don’t post embarrassing things concerning ourselves unless we want to turn them into jokes. We don’t post stuff about frustrations unless we want to turn them into rants.

Thus, we shouldn’t judge a person by his or her social media accounts. In hiking circles nowadays I see a lot of people who deride those who post selfies on the mountains as superficial and petty-minded. But while people can’t upload their environmentalism and sense of responsibility, it doesn’t mean they don’t have these traits.

When avid birdwatchers post pictures of birds, or automobile lovers post pictures of cars, it doesn’t mean that that’s all they do. It simply means that that’s what they want to share with others. When people post pictures of their travels, it doesn’t mean that they’re carefree jet-setters. Most likely, they’re also working people—which is why they’re able to travel in the first place.

Finally, when people post their progress in online games, it doesn’t automatically mean that they are lazy. Maybe that’s their pastime when in an MRT train, or waiting for an Uber ride that’s taking too long.

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What can we take from these insights? First, we can avoid inviting judgment upon ourselves by being mindful of what we post. The impulse to share our experiences with others is as old as humanity, but we must bear in mind that there are different kinds of “others” on Facebook. If you tell your classmates a foul joke, the worst that can happen is that your teacher will overhear it. But when you make a foul joke on Facebook, everyone will read it: all the classmates you’ve ever had, your bosses and officemates, your grandparents, and potentially, even the people you’ve made fun of, no matter how far they are.

Sometimes, it is also a matter of sensitivity to what’s going on around you. Do you really want to announce that you’re enjoying the beach in Boracay when someone in your office has just died? Of course, your intent may be to keep your family updated, but what’s remarkable about Facebook is how it has collapsed the distances between all our social circles—and between our public and private lives—therefore making this sensitivity especially important.

(You can say that this piece of advice further reinforces the “performativity” of Facebook, only making it more nuanced. But Goffman never told us to get off the stage. Instead, what we can get from him is a realization that whether we like it or not, we do have “audiences,” and we, too, are part of other people’s audiences.)

Secondly—and to reiterate my earlier point—we should recognize the limits of social media in according nuance and complexity to its users. I think one of the reasons there’s so much hate and bashing in social media is this: It’s so much easier to find fault in the cool and glamorous versions of ourselves we’ve put up in our accounts. When all you see is somebody’s pictures and some of their random posts, it’s easier to think ill of them. And when all you see is someone’s political or religious views, it’s easy to think of them as ignorant and out of touch with reality. Surely, if you really know them, while you may still disagree with them, at least you know where they’re coming from.

We need to look beyond people’s social media pages to appreciate where their humanity lies. The people you see on Facebook are almost always smiling. But bear in mind that they also cry.

Gideon Lasco is a physician and medical anthropologist. Visit his website on health, culture and society at www.gideonlasco.com.