Personal information (trivia) in the “about me” section of an academic webpage It has been pointed out to me that several business-oriented websites advise to add a few “interesting facts about yourself" in the “about me” section on your professional webpage.

It seems that the aim of this practice is to avoid being “stiff and boring” and to share some unexpected or humorous details that paint a picture of your personal side (quirks and all).


  I wonder if this practice is widespread in academic setting as well (and thus if I should take the advice).



In principle, I don't object to publicly sharing little (not too weird) bits of personal information about myself (such as the music I like, the books I've read recently, what the name of my pet is);
I do know some (quite successful) colleagues and a few professors that include such personal trivia on their webpages;
I think that this might actually have a positive impact on personal relationships with colleagues, senior researchers, and can surely show younger (undergrad) students that we're humans after all!


However, I'm afraid that this practice may be seen as jokey or unprofessional by senior researchers (especially since I'm young, a graduate student). Hence the question.
So far, none of the other answers have mentioned Security.

Personal information, such as What is the name of your first pet, is used by many online account recovery mechanisms.

Many accounts have been hacked using such personal information:


  The following profile elements can be used to steal or misappropriate
  your identity:
  
  
  Full name (particularly your middle name)
  Date of birth (often required)
  Home town
  Relationship status
  School locations and graduation dates
  Pet names
  Other affiliations, interests and hobbies
  


...


  Best Practices
  
  
  Assuming you plan to be active in social media, minimize the use of personal information on your profiles that may be used for password
  verification or phishing attacks.
  Avoid listing the following information publicly: date of birth, hometown, home address, year of high school or college graduation,
  primary e-mail address.
  


Secrets, Lies, and Account Recovery:
Lessons from the Use of Personal Knowledge Questions at Google:


  Publicly available answers.
  
  Rabkin found that 16% of questions had answers routinely listed
  publicly in online social-networking profiles. 
  
  Even if users keep data private on social networks, inference attacks
  enable approximating sensitive information from a user’s friends.


So think very carefully before publically exposing personal information.