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![Let’s face it, the internet shows people the real you Let’s face it, the internet shows people the real you](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/4FavSveeQdYEHssZq5umRQ/9da11000-3b83-4951-aed8-d84d780cc102.jpg/r0_307_5760_3840_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
When I was at uni, I asked a girl out for lunch.
On the day in question, I got to the meeting point a bit early so I could sit there and pretend to be reading the big, thick book I’d brought along.
I figured it would impress the hell out of her (“hey, he’s reading a big, thick book. He must be heaps smart”).
That there was no second date indicated the book ploy was not a resounding success.
But it is an example of how we like to put forward an image of ourselves to others while perhaps hiding the more truthful vision of ourselves
It’s a habit in action with our relationship with the media – where what we tell people we like, isn’t actually what we like.
People may say they want to watch serious news shows, wildlife documentaries and fancy films that the dialogue written at the bottom of the screen.
The TV industry knows that’s a heap of rubbish – because the ratings say people actually watch crappy reality TV shows, tabloid news and movie blockbusters with robots in them.
For ages, newspapers had it harder. Surveys would be commissioned in which people would tell the survey taker that they wanted to read more community news stories, more coverage of the arts and more people stories.
Which were fibs; they wanted to put that better image of themselves forward. They didn’t want to admit to someone else that they actually liked crime and court stories.
Today it’s much easier – you can't hide your true self from media websites. Newsrooms have screens mounted on the wall that track the top stories on the website in real time.
Screens that show what stories people actually like to read, rather than the ones they want people to think they read.
Screens that illuminate people’s real self, not the manicured one they put forward.