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Social media and the Big Five

Have you ever been baited, stalked or hounded on social media? Then welcome to the world of the Big Five on the computer. Some things never change. We thought that computers would be fun, harmless and oh-so-civilised, but once in the while along comes the hunter gatherer, out in the darkness or even broad daylight, and gets the best of us.

Unfortunately, both the hunters and the prey have legitimate pug-marks and even names, so it is easy to get through the usual rigmarole of security in the virtual grasslands, so how do we defend ourselves? Let us for a moment see what the real Big Five do in real jungles. The elephant is large, but usually hides behind tall grass most of the time, and at the appropriate moment charges at his purported hunter, giving him the fright of his life. It works. On websites, they charge (at) you by asking for your credit card number, and all this while you never saw the elephant hiding in the tall grass. It is, indeed time to run.

In case you spot a black rhinoceros, you better run anyway. Do not worry, the magnificent beasts are vegetarians, but surely there is a poacher somewhere around who might (thankfully) miss his target, but get your nose instead. The most in numbers though would be the magnificent Cape buffalo, and they kill, especially if wounded, and they are seen in herds. Just keep a safe distance, and what if you see the lion? The best, they say, is to make a quick decision whether you want to be the hunter or the hunted, and get on with it.

You have of course heard of buzzing commerce websites, doing roaring business in and around the social media. The leopard of course is the most difficult to spot (though some say they are born that way) and if you are hunting one, it could take a long-long time, but if you are getting hunted, then this one could be the quickest.

Indeed such hazards are becoming so commonplace, that along with reading books like ‘Social Media for Dummies’, it might be equally useful to have Peter H. Capstick’s old classic: ‘Safari, The Last Adventure’, also at hand.

But psychologists will tell you of another Big Five that you need to be aware of on the Internet – the personality traits that come into play in the uninhibited world of cyber reality. But this one is filled with complicated words like circumplex and superordinate, and is truly a twenty-first century science, though it looks suspiciously like Confucius’ Five Virtues. The theory talks of opposing-reinforcing pairs of personality traits like volatility & withdrawal, compassion & politeness, industriousness & orderliness, enthusiasm & assertiveness, and finally, openness & intellect. The wise old Chinese simply stated – benevolence, honesty, conscientiousness, altruism and good manners – as good virtues.

Truly, how much of all this do we see in ourselves when we are in our imagined worlds on social media. It took mankind thousands of years to get from the jungle to the computer, but have we in some ways, come back to the same place?

Stop ladies and gentlemen, and think!

Polonius, when not appearing in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, is a Hi-Tech Security Solutions’ writer with fantasies of big game hunting and adventure.

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