頭像能展示你的個性

甘肅天水市第三中學 侯志遠

在社交網絡時代,第一印象有時甚至在我們真正見到某人之前就已經形成了——人們的頭像已經揭示了他們的性格。

When we meet strangers for the first time, we usually get a vague sense of what kind of person they are by the way they shake hands, talk, or walk. In the age of social networking, however,the first impressions are sometimes made even before we actually meet someone in person—that is, by looking at his/her profile photo.

According to a recent study, these social images say a lot about our personality. In the study,presented in a paper at the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, a group of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania in the US used software to analyze the profile pictures of 66,000 users of US social platform Twitter and 3,200 of their tweets. At the same time, about 434 participants were asked to complete a survey about their personality type. The researchers wanted to find out if there was a connection between personality traits—like openness, extroversion, and neuroticism—and a person's profile picture.

According to the results, open people are more likely to pose in an unusual way and use objects such as glasses or a guitar in their profile photos because they enjoy new and exciting experiences.Meanwhile, neurotic （神經質的） people often hold back their negative emotions. They try to avoid showing their faces. Instead, they use an image of something like a pet, a car or a building. That's because neurotic people are strongly influenced by the “strong social norms（規范） against a very sad or angry appearance in profile pictures,” Daniel Preoiuc-Pietro from the University of Pennsylvania wrote in the research paper.

Apart from the objects in profile pictures, the colors used in them also give us some hints about the photo's owner. For example, extraverts were found to have the most colorful profile images, as they want to emphasize their personality and show themselves off, the researchers wrote.

Although social media photos usually represent an extension of one's self, they also allow a user to shape his or her own personality and idealized view, according to the researchers. So, when choosing a profile photo, maybe we should ask ourselves first what kind of image we'd like to convey. After all, first impressions always last.

Reading Check

1. What helps form the first impressions with the development of network?

A. Gestures. B. Greetings.

C. Shaking hands. D. Profile pictures.

2. What's the purpose of the study?

A. To analyze the users' preference.

B. To conduct a survey about personality types.

C. To explore the formation of the first impressions.

D. To seek out the link between characters and profile photos.

3. According to the study, an outgoing person may_________.

A. care little about his image

B. choose a puppy dog as an image

C. share a distinct pose in his photo

D. fill his profile photo with light colors

Language Study

Difficult sentence

When we meet strangers for the first time, we usually get a vague sense of what kind of person they are by the way they shake hands, talk, or walk.

【翻譯】_____________________________________________________________________________

【點石成金】這是一個主從復合句，When we meet someone for the first time是時間狀語從句，we usually get a vague sense of what kind of person they are by the way they shake hands, talk, or walk是主句，其中what kind of person they are by the way they shake hands, talk, or walk是介詞of的賓語從句，而they shake hands, talk, or walk是定語從句，the way是先行詞，其后省略了that或in which。