Human Psychology, Face Recognition, and Twitter Profiles

Listen. Somewhere, deep in our collective psyche, humans have something of a knack for faces. Call it what you like; an evolutionary adaptation, the spark of the divine perhaps, and analyze it all day if you want, but it's true. Some of us might regularly forget a name, but we very rarely forget a face.
 
In fact, we're so good at spotting faces we have a knack for finding them in the most curious places. No doubt then this is why our religious icons choose to manifest themselves on a burnt tortilla, a piece of toast, or in the divination favorite of yesteryear, tea leaves. A collection of shapeless shadows on a rock on another planet is surely a face. It's a rock, we know. They're shadows, we know that too. It's a lousy photograph as well. But our brains so much _want_ it to be a face, that it can be hard to persuade us otherwise.
 
It doesn't stop at faces; we're anthropomorphic elsewhere as well. We name our cars, project human-like behaviors onto our pets, visualize robots in science-fiction as androids, and identify faceless organizations like the telephone company with the people who advertise them. In the past few years, even something as dull as auto insurance now has a (female) face.
 
Presumably our abilities to recognize other humans, even at a distance, contributed greatly to our chances of survival. Oddly enough, it's still true. If you're not recognizable online, you're as good as dead. I tried it for a while. I've already got a personal Twitter account; I wanted a separate one for this blog. I found myself a nice old typewriter picture. Seemed a good fit.
 
It didn't last 24 hours. Not that anyone complained. Not that I tried to tweet what the typewriter had for breakfast. It just didn't fit, pure and simple. Take a look at the twitterati in your favorite niche. Most of them have human faces. Not all of us are particularly attractive humans, but we're real. Our faces convey an element of trust. Even some of the twitterbots pretend to be human, with names like @MrMilestone or @MrTweet.
 
Take this to heart. Whatever your endeavor on the web, first and foremost, be yourself - no matter what else, it's the only way you'll convey any trust.

Posted via email from GuestBlog Me!