Tuesday 17 February 2004 - News - Security
Most lies are told over the phone
Lies are more than twice
as likely to be told when people talk over the phone than when they
are chatting via email, new research has found.
The study, believed to be the world's first to compare honesty across a range of communications media, has concluded that when it comes to the Internet it appears users are afraid to be untruthful when they know the message could later be used to hold them to account.
Jeff Hancock, the study's author, found people are more likely to lie in real time - in an instant message or phone call - than if they have time to think of a response.
Hancock, assistant professor at the department of communication in Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, asked 30 students to keep a communications diary for a week, New Scientist magazine reported. In it they noted the number of conversations or email exchanges they had lasting more than 10 minutes, and confessed to how many lies they told.
The researcher then worked out the number of lies per conversation for each medium. He found that lies made up 14% of emails, 21% of instant messages, 27% of face-to-face interactions and 37% of phone calls.
His results, to be presented at the conference on human-computer interaction in Vienna, Austria in April, have surprised psychologists. Some expected emailers to be the biggest liars, reasoning that because deception makes people uncomfortable, the detachment of emailing would make it easier to lie.
Hancock hopes his research will help companies work out the best ways for their employees to communicate.
Johnny Thomson
The study, believed to be the world's first to compare honesty across a range of communications media, has concluded that when it comes to the Internet it appears users are afraid to be untruthful when they know the message could later be used to hold them to account.
Jeff Hancock, the study's author, found people are more likely to lie in real time - in an instant message or phone call - than if they have time to think of a response.
Hancock, assistant professor at the department of communication in Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, asked 30 students to keep a communications diary for a week, New Scientist magazine reported. In it they noted the number of conversations or email exchanges they had lasting more than 10 minutes, and confessed to how many lies they told.
The researcher then worked out the number of lies per conversation for each medium. He found that lies made up 14% of emails, 21% of instant messages, 27% of face-to-face interactions and 37% of phone calls.
His results, to be presented at the conference on human-computer interaction in Vienna, Austria in April, have surprised psychologists. Some expected emailers to be the biggest liars, reasoning that because deception makes people uncomfortable, the detachment of emailing would make it easier to lie.
Hancock hopes his research will help companies work out the best ways for their employees to communicate.
Johnny Thomson