Technology has given people more ways to connect, but has it also given them more opportunities to lie?
A seminal2004 studywas among the first to investigate the connection between deception rates and technology.
The link between deception and technology
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Students also reported the number of times they lied in each social interaction.
The results suggested people told the most lies per social interaction on the phone.
The fewest were told via email.
The findings aligned with a framework Hancock called the feature-based model.
The fewest occurred on email, where people couldnt communicate synchronously and the messages were recorded.
The iPhone was in its early stages of development, a highly confidential project nicknamed Project Purple.
What would his results look like nearly 20 years later?
They told the fewest lies per social interaction via email.
Interestingly, though, the differences across the forms of communication were small.
Its possible that certain media are betterfacilitators of deceptionthan others.
Deception rates might also differ across technology because people use some forms of technology for certain social relationships.
Technology misunderstood
To me, there are two key takeaways.
First, there are, overall, small differences in lying rates across media.
An individuals tendency to lie matters more than whether someone is emailing or talking on the phone.
Second, theres a low rate of lying across the board.
Since 2004, social media have become a primary place forinteracting with other people.
Not only is this perception misguided, but it is also unsupported by empirical evidence.
Thebelief that lying is rampantin the digital age just doesnt match the data.
