4. CMC Deception and Detection

Ahoy all.

So I decided to see whether lying to my friends would work over instant messaging. I decided to tell this lie to a close friend of mine but one that i hadn't really spoken to since the start of the semester. It seemed like a good blend of knowing the other person well so he could tell whether I was lying and yet at the same time giving a window which would allow me to tell him something significant without it being obvious that I was lying.

First I tried lying to him about something huge. I told him that I had Pats tickets for the weekend of fall break. He was really excited at hearing this news. It was an extremely realistic lie, but nevertheless, one that was somewhat sensational, but he believed it easily. I think that he believed it because of the tone that I used to tell him about it. I also think that if I told this to someone else that was a bit more rational-minded (like my father maybe), that it would have been perceived as a pretty transparent lie.

After that, I also told him something that seemed slightly outrageous, but this was true. I brought up some of the things that I had done over the weekend which was considerably bizarre, but still true. Ironically, he seemed slightly more reluctant to believe this truth than he believed the other story. Nevertheless, he did not outright detect this as a lie, and I couldn't see any indication that he thought it was. So I suppose that he believed me on both counts. Thus, he supported the idea that people are bad at picking up lies, even when not face to face.

I think that it would have been very difficult for me to tell this to him in person. Most difficult was the fact that he was roughly 1000 miles away at the time, but aside from that, I would have found it really difficult to make it seem like I really believed that I had the tickets. Doing so would have forced me to display a lot more enthusiasm and confidence than I can usually muster unless I am feeling them authentically. Thus, choosing a lean media in this case was conducive to my deceptive aim. This supports Social Distance Theory, because by choosing a leaner medium, I was in an environment that made it more comfortable to lie.