Facebook Photos: Say Cheese!

My Facebook friends may not believe me, but I DO have boundaries.  We are not talking maximum-security-prison-wall-type boundaries, but more like white- picket-fence-type boundaries (but boundaries nonetheless).  One of my hard-and-fast rules is to not look at images posted on Facebook by my students.  I decided long ago that would rather NOT know what my students are doing.  Thanks to a work by Andrew Mendelson and Zizi Papacharissi, “BFFs and beer: The rhetoric of college student Facebook galleries” which will appear in Papacharissi’s book The Network Self, now I DO know what type of photos populate the pages of the average college freshman and sophomore.  And I wish I didn’t.

Mendelson and Papacharissi surveyed more than 300 undergraduates about their Facebook use and 89 agreed to allow them to examine their photos and photo comments more carefully. The number of photos on their pages ranged from 1 to 1,523, with an average of 337 photos on female Facebook pages and 93 on male pages.  Among the authors’ findings:

• The photos largely document the authentic college experience. “Authentic college experience” of course, doesn’t include attending class or studying, something they are expected to do on at least a semi-regular basis. Rather the photos are centered on friends and the rituals of college life, including drinking, sports, and the closeness of a peer group.  The photos also rarely feature parents or other family members, which confirms their independence from family and childhood (and confirms that they consider parents to be about as cool as Wayne Newton singing “Danke Shoen” ).
• Relationships prove to be the dominant subject matter of the photos, with most being parings or groups of friends, primarily of the same gender. The photos stress the importance of one’s peer group, and stress friendship.
• The photos center on typical planned high school and college activities or rituals such as parties, road trips with friends, dances and proms, school-year holidays (with Halloween and St. Patrick’s Day being the two biggies) and college sporting events.The posting of  students actively participating in the social rituals of college is crucial. For example, the authors discuss a series of photos of a group of male friends painting their chests in team colors, each with a letter of the school on his chest. This was photographed during the painting process as well as at the actual sporting event.
• Parties (big surprise) were the most common setting for photos with subjects proudly posing with beer cups or bottles in hand—even though most of those in the photos were minors. Indeed, there seemed little attempt to hide “bad behavior.”  Underage minors proudly thrust their beer toward the camera. The authors mentioned a series of  photos that featured “a girl dancing crazily with a drink in her hand, licking a girl’s face and licking the top of a girl friend’s chest. The fact that the image remains posted suggests she did not feel this was too embarrassing to take down.”  Yikes!  It makes one wonder what the images on the more than 200 students who DIDN’T give the authors permission to view their Facebook photos looked like.
• Subjects were acutely aware of the camera. Few candid poses were posted.  Most photos were posed. Subjects were typically close to each other,  with women in particularly hugging their (usually female) friends. Pictures often featured exaggerated poses aimed at the camera such as grinning widely, sticking one’s tongue out at the camera, or overtly drinking with friends. However, few pictures featured cigarettes or drugs.  Some things just aren’t cool to post on Facebook.

As a baby boomer, my experience with posting and sharing online photos is radically different.  Facebook photo albums are extensions of more conventional photo albums, featuring photos of family and key events in a family’s life.  I police photos posted of me to ensure nothing unsavory gets posted.  (I have considered also deleting photos in which I have a goofy grin, but that would cut the number of photos I have in about half).

The results from Mendelson and Papacharissi’s study supports others that suggest that the Millennials value online privacy about as much as Hugh Hefner values monogamy . (Although to be fair, Pew Internet discovered Millennials are not exactly cyber exhibitionists; about two-thirds have at least some privacy controls on their social media sites).  Millennials should have reason to pause before posting photos showing them  dancing on tables, downing a fifth of whiskey. Surveys suggest up to 45 percent of employers check applicants’ social network pages

Most of my blog posts have been directed to friends and colleagues who are part of Gen X or are Baby Boomers.  But this time I alerted several Millenials. I am curious, particularly those of you raised in the digital age, whether you think Mendelsohn and Papacharissi’s work presents an accurate image of your generation’s Facebook photo images.  How about your Facebook page or your friends’? Certainly the technology makes it easier for the Millennials to be online exhibitionists and share their inner thoughts as well as share images that mom and dad would likely not approve of (although Mendelsohn and Papacharissi DID talk about pictures of parents playing beer pong with their kids).  Do those of you whose parents are Facebook friends more actively edit the kind of photos that appear on your page?  I am eager to hear what you have to say.