Regular Facebook, MySpace status updates can reveal your personality

Melbourne, May 23 : If you are the sorts who keep on changing your Facebook status from time to time, then you are one big attention seeking extrovert, says a social networking analyst.

Laurel Papworth has said such explicit displays of self-promotion on websites like Facebook, MySpace or Orkut, carry hidden messages that may tell if a person is an extrovert or urging for sympathy.

"The extrovert, they are always going to be updating because the world revolves around them and one can assume that means the world needs to know how they are feeling from minute to minute," News.com.au quoted Papworth, as saying.

She added: "There's a lot of passive-aggressive behaviour in social networks and some interesting statuses - I'm mad at my boss, I'm mad at my mum, my teacher. We're expecting our good friends to come and commiserate and give presents on our page or leave comments on our page presumably in support of our emotional state."

The trend is catching up so much so, that one of the Facebook fan, Conor Woods, a 32-year-old executive revealed that at times he finds himself thinking short, descriptive phrases for his next status update.

While he confessed that his updates were mainly aimed at having fun, there are others who were trying to build up a better image online which they are not fortunate to have in reality.

"We live in a time where everybody is really conscious of branding and advertising and everyone is really media literate... (people) know how to shape their identity online to give the best image of themselves," said Woods.

Papworth also insisted that those having a visual bent of mind will update their photographs more often as they find it more appealing.

On the other hand, Woods has his own take on this. He said: "I don't like it when people use a photo that's not them, using something like a rock star. It seems to me like they're hiding away, like they don't want to face who they are."

"The ones where you see couples, just in case you didn't see in the relationship status that they're in a relationship with that person, that's the person they have their arms around. Now I get it, it's too much."

But, if in case the relationship meets reaches a sad end, then a "no longer in a relationship" update lets your friends, and sometimes your ex, know right away.

Papworth said: "I know one girl who found out her boyfriend had broken up with her because he changed his Facebook status update. She rang him and said 'You've changed the update, what's happened?' And he said 'Can't you guess?'

"Every generation guys find a way of copping out of doing the right thing, using different communication tools, and women do as well. This is just the newest way of breaking hearts."

However, she claimed that despite of all the possibilities of public humiliation and secrets revealed, people will still continue to use the sites as they provide a sense of community.

"We're reaching out to people we can connect with online and have them show that they care and we care about them," she said.

ANI