First-order effects

• Anyone who screens a person through their profile — recruiters, admissions officers, dates, landlords — is reading either an actual or an aspirational self, and this research determines which; if idealisation dominates, profile-based judgment systematically misprices people.
• Facebook and MySpace's pitch to advertisers depends on profile data tracking real traits; a body of evidence showing systematic idealisation would undercut the premise that profiles are reliable targeting signals.

Second-order effects

• Identity verification moves from background concern to product requirement: the same week, a NetWitness report identified Facebook as the primary malware-distribution channel for a botnet army, so platforms face pressure to distinguish genuine from manufactured personas alongside merely embellished ones.
• Facebook's own moderation calls become de facto authenticity rulings — the suspension and rapid restoration of three Argentines' profiles behind the satirical book 'Faceboom' after a Latin American media uproar shows the platform already arbitrating which self-presentations count as legitimate.

Third-order effects

• If profiles become a primary identity layer for commerce and reputation, the industry splits between platforms profiting from optimistic self-presentation and verifiers selling ground truth — a structural tension between self-reported and authenticated identity.
• Regulatory attention follows trust: once profile data drives credit, hiring, and payments decisions, the accuracy claims platforms make about user information stop being a psychology question and become a disclosure question.