Seriously, though. Looking back, one of the most striking things we saw last week was the graph of reported vs. actual (weight, height, etc etc)--striking to me because even though deviations existed, the mainstream web surfer was actually relatively accurate. I almost threw my friend out of the assignment when I asked him to rate his profile (photo, info, groups, pictures) and he gave me back all 5's, but I decided to take a look first and make sure I could yell at him later and maybe guilt him into a free sandwich for being clearly wrong and putting no thought into helping me.
As it turned out, my findings vibed with Joe's (see below) so much that I almost feel like writing this post is pointless. Not only was everything exactly what I would have written about this guy, down to the ironic facebook groups and the laid-back photos of him and his girlfriend, but thinking about it later made me feel like that's what I should have expected. (I'd been primed to expect some serious untruths.) Like Joe said, the point of a Facebook profile isn't to stand out as a potential mate--that's a whole different ballgame and the rules are completely different. The goal of Facebook is to make sure your friends are up to date with what's going on in your life. Why would you want to deceive them? Our definition of digital deception is "intentional control of a tech-mediated message to create false beliefs." Finding that among my friends on Facebook is rare, especially given that we're looking for intentional manipulation. I think this is an example of Media Richness Theory--even if he wanted to max out the equivocality and lie about himself, Facebook is asynchronous (thus verifiable) and even with photos and video it's still a text-based environment (very lean). It also looks like a blow to Social Distance Theory--because you can't control who looks at your profile, it's about as impersonal as you can get, and lying should be easy. What's more, I know from real life that he's not one to avoid a white lie. So Social Distance Theory seems like it got it backwards.
Overall, I kind of wish I'd thought about it a little more and chosen the other option so I could play around with deceiving others a little more--that way I could have at least guaranteed some deception to analyze.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
(1) For Assignment #4, I chose option 1: I created my own deception experiment. I decided to call roommate from last year to invite her to lunch. When we actually got together for lunch, the topic of weekend activities arose, and I found my perfect chance to insert a little lie about what I did. I started to tell her about my weekend, and I told her that I went to New Jersey to visit my family and go to my cousin’s sweet 16. I tried to elaborate on some details of my supposed weekend activities—for example: how my bus ride was incredibly long and boring, how the weather was really cold, and how my cousin’s huge birthday bash was a success. I made up details, telling her how my cousin looked “gorgeous in her grayish-blue dress.” My friend then asked how my cousin’s hair was done, and I hesitated before I responded (to give the effect of me actually trying to remember this tiny detail) by describing to her the typical up-do many prom-goers happen to fashion off. This was all a huge fabrication and I continued to make up details as I went along with the conversation. This was a lie using rich media.
Later that day, I called my roommate to see if she wanted to study sometime soon, and I again, brought up casual conversation (this time over the phone). I steered it into the direction of my boyfriend, and as we continued our discussion, she asked how he was doing. I told her about my previous weekend, where I went to visit my boyfriend in New York City. Again, I relayed the long bus ride down, except I told her everything I did (from doing homework, to napping, to playing with my Rubik’s cube, to watching a couple of episodes of the hit television show The Office). I also gave her a day-by-day breakdown of what I did, where we went to eat, etc. I told her the truth using lean(er) media. My roommate then asked how I could afford to miss two weekends at Cornell (we are both really busy, over-achievers, and have a tough time taking time away from school), where I then told her that one of my weekends did not actually happen. I asked her to guess which weekend didn’t happen, and she said it was the weekend I spent with my boyfriend.
(2) She was surprised to discover that she was wrong! In order to maintain my appearance of not lying and not deceiving her when talking to her in person, I attempted to keep my story straight and flowing. I threw in random, fabricated details which I felt would give my story some substance. I felt that with the face to face interaction, I had more control over what I could convey. I used my hands (like I always do when I talk), and I was able to add in gestures, such as hesitating to recall a small detail. By using an extremely rich media, I was able to pass along more social cues such as controlling my expressions, and hand motions. My actions were very in harmony with the Media Richness Theory, which states that the leaner the medium, the less ambiguity about a message would exist. Thus meaning, that the richer the medium, the more ambiguity a message could have. The leaner medium was our conversation over the phone, therefore, the phone conversation was supposed to be the unambiguous exchange (which is true in this case). While I tried very hard to go unsuspected, I’m still a little bit surprised that she didn’t catch onto my lie because according to a study, “it appears we have to concentrate when we lie” (Wallace 51), and I definitely spent more time trying to “recall” the details of my weekend with my cousin. I figure it would have been easier for my roommate to detect my concentration in person since there are more social cues to critique.
(3) My partner relied on mainly the content of what I told her, as well as some of my hand gestures and motions. She knew how important family was to me, and she knows that they come before my boyfriend which is why she chose the first weekend to be true. The Social Distance Theory says that she would think I was lying when talking to her over the phone because the theory claims that people are uncomfortable when they lie, and thus, choose to distance themselves from lying by choosing a leaner medium to communicate through.
Later that day, I called my roommate to see if she wanted to study sometime soon, and I again, brought up casual conversation (this time over the phone). I steered it into the direction of my boyfriend, and as we continued our discussion, she asked how he was doing. I told her about my previous weekend, where I went to visit my boyfriend in New York City. Again, I relayed the long bus ride down, except I told her everything I did (from doing homework, to napping, to playing with my Rubik’s cube, to watching a couple of episodes of the hit television show The Office). I also gave her a day-by-day breakdown of what I did, where we went to eat, etc. I told her the truth using lean(er) media. My roommate then asked how I could afford to miss two weekends at Cornell (we are both really busy, over-achievers, and have a tough time taking time away from school), where I then told her that one of my weekends did not actually happen. I asked her to guess which weekend didn’t happen, and she said it was the weekend I spent with my boyfriend.
(2) She was surprised to discover that she was wrong! In order to maintain my appearance of not lying and not deceiving her when talking to her in person, I attempted to keep my story straight and flowing. I threw in random, fabricated details which I felt would give my story some substance. I felt that with the face to face interaction, I had more control over what I could convey. I used my hands (like I always do when I talk), and I was able to add in gestures, such as hesitating to recall a small detail. By using an extremely rich media, I was able to pass along more social cues such as controlling my expressions, and hand motions. My actions were very in harmony with the Media Richness Theory, which states that the leaner the medium, the less ambiguity about a message would exist. Thus meaning, that the richer the medium, the more ambiguity a message could have. The leaner medium was our conversation over the phone, therefore, the phone conversation was supposed to be the unambiguous exchange (which is true in this case). While I tried very hard to go unsuspected, I’m still a little bit surprised that she didn’t catch onto my lie because according to a study, “it appears we have to concentrate when we lie” (Wallace 51), and I definitely spent more time trying to “recall” the details of my weekend with my cousin. I figure it would have been easier for my roommate to detect my concentration in person since there are more social cues to critique.
(3) My partner relied on mainly the content of what I told her, as well as some of my hand gestures and motions. She knew how important family was to me, and she knows that they come before my boyfriend which is why she chose the first weekend to be true. The Social Distance Theory says that she would think I was lying when talking to her over the phone because the theory claims that people are uncomfortable when they lie, and thus, choose to distance themselves from lying by choosing a leaner medium to communicate through.
A4.2 - Facebook Speaks the Truth!
After hearing the assignment of performing a similar interview to Catalina's study I immediately had reservations. I doubted as to whether this would support the findings of Catalina due to sizable role difference of Facebook and online dating sites. The goal of keeping in touch with friends presents vastly different requirements than trying to attract someone to a relationship. Knowing this it seemed clear to me that people on Facebook would lie less, or not at all as this betrays trust between friends who can relatively easily verify your claims. With this prediction in hand I started my interview.
A Facebook profile consists of a mix of conventional and assessment signals. Assessment signals consist of a Cornell email, major, certain address information and the myriad of uploaded photos. Conventional signals are the interests, about me, and favourite ..., parts of a profile. After going through the profile, my friend listed the accuracy of everything at a 5 save for interests and music which she rated a 4. Those 2 fields rated at a 4 were simply because they were slightly outdated. As for validation, I noted the she did indeed listen to the music and watch the movies she listed. In addition she had already talked about books on her list to me prior to the assignment. So far my predictions have held true, but why?
Numerous theories are available to explain why my friend did not lie on her Facebook profile. Media Richness Theory (MRT) and Feature-based theories directly support my findings. The complex task of lying is difficult to accomplish in a small, simple text/still photo environment especially when coupled with the feature based arguments that Facebook is an asynchronous and recordable environment making it easy to verify information.
The third theory, Social Distance theory, is a little more difficult to explain. SDT predicts that people will use the media with the largest social distance to lie in order to separate themselves from the target and avoid the unpleasantness of lying. With that in mind, many people may propose that an asynchronous CMC based media such as Facebook would be ideal for lying. As a result, my findings contrast with SDT predictions. However, I propose that Facebook is not as socially distant as it may first appear. Many people check Facebook multiple times throughout the day, commenting on changes to profiles in FtF and other CMC based media. It is also possible for wall posting to approach synchronous communication. In essence people often quickly know what and when information on your profile changes (thanks to the newsfeed). This vastly reduces the social distance as friends can easily challenge one about changes to a profile. The very nature and makeup (almost friends only) of Facebook reduces its social distance to the point where even SDT would predict that people would not lie on Facebook.
A few interesting observations arose during the experiment that warrant extra attention. Firstly, how do we define lying on Facebook? Certainly explicit lies would count, but what about omissions? A profile may be completely factual, but is it the whole truth and would we consider that a lie? Or do we simply view omissions as a compromise to keeping a profile short and sweet? Secondly, theories predicting how people lie seem to fail to consider the purpose of similar media. Arguably, Facebook and MySpace are exactly the same. However, Facebook primarily is for friends already met in real life. The origins of Facebook only strengthen this as it was meant for college students only in the beginning. Myspace in contrast is more of a general networking site. Lying to friends is a lot more serious than to the random strangers found on Myspace. We can see that the issue is more complicated than any one theory can predict by itself. Personally I find it reassuring that people, at least from my observations, are more real on Facebook than what our gut reaction may lead us to believe.
4 - Globe Trekker
Firstly, I would like to make the disclaimer that I am the worst liar in the world. This is evidenced by the results of my experiment. I am, however, a good storyteller, so I kept my friend interested when I told her of my ‘treks across the globe’. My lovely housemate Maria volunteered herself for the project, however I mistakenly asked for her assistance after realizing that she already knew a little about my traveling history. This made the challenge of lying more difficult, and may have affected the results of this experiment.
Nevertheless, I was excited about testing my skills as a deviant on Maria. First, I told her face to face of my travels to
My second face to face story was a brief synopsis of my trip to
I think readers of this blog might have already guessed that the fake story, although very detailed, was the first. My mistake in this experiment is that previously, in my knowing Maria, I have already shared with her my most riveting stories of traveling to
Webmail saved the day as my lean medium for Globe-Trekker journal keeping. Digital deception came strongly into play here as I looked up tourism facts on
My second story via email was a factual story about a trip to
From my experiences, certain theories matched with particular lies on a situational basis. Media Richness Theory worked with the FtF Bangladesh story, but not with O’Sullivan’s Model or Social Distance Theory. The Impression Management Model and Social Distance Theory worked well with the CMC Phuket story, but not with Media Richness Theory. Although Maria saw through both lies, my rationale for having created each was concurrent with certain theories. The most important thing to consider, however, is if I need to work on my lying skills….
Assignment 4/Option 2 - My Best Friend Lies!?
In considering the anatomy of one of my closest friend’s Facebook profiles, I realized that some of the simplest and most modest aspects of her self-description were unintentionally deceiving. Though her profile consists only of a default picture and a collection of assorted interests, I feel that a stranger could get a good idea of her personality or just as easily come away with a somewhat distorted perception.
To begin, my friend’s default photograph is a picture of her from the 9th grade. While her appearance in the picture is clearly different from her current appearance, a stranger may not have guessed that this was a phony. Rather, a given person might have assumed that her date of birth or year in school was a lie based on her picture. Due to the lean nature of the media, only the viewer who knows my friend will be aware of the contradiction. In addition, while she rated over 50% of her self-proclaimed Interests as 5’s (completely accurate), 20% were 2’s and 20% were 3’s. Her most accurately rated Interests were fairly predictable – what was surprising were her least accurately rated Interests. Some of the things I associate with her very highly (“being late,” along with some jokes with her friends and boyfriend) were not among her most accurately rated. Had I misjudged my good friend? Or been led astray by this lean media? Seeing that 40% of her self-proclaimed Interests were 2’s and 3’s, I considered the medium at hand – Facebook – to blame.
Because, by nature, the Facebook profile is readily editable, hers contained fewer identity-based assessment signals than conventional signals. Conventional signals are entirely temporary and thus prone to change. Her photograph and her interests can be altered with the click of a button. The deception of my friend’s Facebook profile can be attributed both to the Social Distance Theory and the Hyperpersonal Model. The link to the Social Distance Theory is merely that, due to lean media, it is easy and more frequent for deception to occur. The Hyperpersonal Model is a better way to discuss this phenomenon: selective self-presentation is the main factor. According to the theory, people lie subtly to appear more attractive. None of my friend’s lies were drastic, nor were they out of character. They were merely a bit different than her truest beliefs. The reduced cues of such an asynchronous medium as Facebook allowed deception to go unnoticed to the unsuspecting profile viewer.
Essentially, while my friend’s lies were minimal in significance, they were fairly common among her limited profile. They were undetectable to even me until I asked her to assess her interests – thus, proving the effectiveness of lean media subtlety and the truth behind the Social Distance Theory and Hyperpersonal Model.
To begin, my friend’s default photograph is a picture of her from the 9th grade. While her appearance in the picture is clearly different from her current appearance, a stranger may not have guessed that this was a phony. Rather, a given person might have assumed that her date of birth or year in school was a lie based on her picture. Due to the lean nature of the media, only the viewer who knows my friend will be aware of the contradiction. In addition, while she rated over 50% of her self-proclaimed Interests as 5’s (completely accurate), 20% were 2’s and 20% were 3’s. Her most accurately rated Interests were fairly predictable – what was surprising were her least accurately rated Interests. Some of the things I associate with her very highly (“being late,” along with some jokes with her friends and boyfriend) were not among her most accurately rated. Had I misjudged my good friend? Or been led astray by this lean media? Seeing that 40% of her self-proclaimed Interests were 2’s and 3’s, I considered the medium at hand – Facebook – to blame.
Because, by nature, the Facebook profile is readily editable, hers contained fewer identity-based assessment signals than conventional signals. Conventional signals are entirely temporary and thus prone to change. Her photograph and her interests can be altered with the click of a button. The deception of my friend’s Facebook profile can be attributed both to the Social Distance Theory and the Hyperpersonal Model. The link to the Social Distance Theory is merely that, due to lean media, it is easy and more frequent for deception to occur. The Hyperpersonal Model is a better way to discuss this phenomenon: selective self-presentation is the main factor. According to the theory, people lie subtly to appear more attractive. None of my friend’s lies were drastic, nor were they out of character. They were merely a bit different than her truest beliefs. The reduced cues of such an asynchronous medium as Facebook allowed deception to go unnoticed to the unsuspecting profile viewer.
Essentially, while my friend’s lies were minimal in significance, they were fairly common among her limited profile. They were undetectable to even me until I asked her to assess her interests – thus, proving the effectiveness of lean media subtlety and the truth behind the Social Distance Theory and Hyperpersonal Model.
Assignment # 4: Can you detect my deception?
Part I: This weekend, I resolved to conduct my own deception experiment. To begin, I invited a friend I had met over the summer to come to dinner with me so we could catch up. As we waited for our food in Applebee's, we reminisced about the time we spent in Cleveland this summer. As we laughed and joked, the conversation turned to what we were currently up to. I thought this would be a perfect time to test out my deception skills. Thus, I told him about how I went to New York City to see my favorite band, Paramore, play at the Crazy Donkey in Long Island. He knew how much I loved Paramore, considering the fact that every time he came to visit me I was playing a track off the their new album, Riot!. I explained to him how my best friend had found out that they were playing around where we live and she thought that it would be fun to see them live. To make the story more believable, I mentioned how I had never seen a band preform live. Thus, the opportunity to see them in a small venue, where I could be close enough to touch their instruments, was novel. I went into detail about how I took the Shortline last Friday night with only enough clothes for the concert. I told him about how my heart sank when the bus was delayed for about 1 hour and how the person in the seat next to me insisted on eating something that smelled like a dead cat. He sat there and laughed at the sheer chaos that was my trip to see Paramore. As I went into detail about the environment prior to the show, highlighting the army of wannabe fans, and the fight that I could tell he believed me because he asked questions about what songs they performed and how close I was to the main stage. I answered all of his questions with as much detail as possible so that there would be no doubt that I did in fact attend the concert. In this scenario, I used rich media, face to face communication, to conduct my deception experiment.
Part II: To continue my deception experiment, I decided to call up my friend the next day when I knew he had a break from work. He told me how bored he was at work and thanked me for rescuing him with my phonecall. He asked what I was up to, and I thought that this would be the perfect time to tell the truth about what I did last weekend. I told him that I was uploading pictures onto my computer from my friend's surprise birthday party last weekend. I told him how I helped throw her a surprise birthday party at Stella's for her 21st. As I went into detail about how I contacted all of her friends with personalized invitations, I could sense the confusion in his voice. I mentioned how I was planning the party for weeks and how many times she almost found out about the party. In the middle of my talking about how I had a friend pretend they would be taking her to dinner at Stella's, he finally asked how I could have possibly went to New York City for the weekend and planned an elaborated birthday party in Ithaca. I used lean media, the telephone, in the second scenario.
Part III: Afterwards, I asked him to tell me which traveling story was the truth and which one was a lie. He hesitated for a second and then informed me that he thought the second story was a lie. The result of the experiment was that the truth was not detected correctly for the lean media. Instead, the lie was reasoned to be true, in light of the rich media.
To accomplish my lying, I worked on my self-presentation goals- i.e. appearing honest. The deception strategy that I used was lying subtly. I had in fact attended a Paramore concert at the Crazy Donkey, but had done so two summers ago. Thus, we did not have to stumble over inventing details because we had somewhere to draw from. I think that this helped to accomplish lying because there were no nonverbal cues to pick up that would help him to detect any deception on my end. In addition, I knew that since the media used was rich, I needed to make sure that my self-presentation was methodical. However, with respect to the use of the lean media, the telephone, I realize that the only thing that my friend had to focus his attention was the content with which we told our initial lie. When it came to discerning which story I told that was a lie we realized that the reason why he had such difficulty was because we had failed to display cues such as gaze aversions or "ah" speech disturbances. Overall, we feel like the truth bias also played a vital role in the outcome of his choice. He believed that I was going to tell the truth when I spoke with him, and trusted that I would not misrepresent myself.
Part II: To continue my deception experiment, I decided to call up my friend the next day when I knew he had a break from work. He told me how bored he was at work and thanked me for rescuing him with my phonecall. He asked what I was up to, and I thought that this would be the perfect time to tell the truth about what I did last weekend. I told him that I was uploading pictures onto my computer from my friend's surprise birthday party last weekend. I told him how I helped throw her a surprise birthday party at Stella's for her 21st. As I went into detail about how I contacted all of her friends with personalized invitations, I could sense the confusion in his voice. I mentioned how I was planning the party for weeks and how many times she almost found out about the party. In the middle of my talking about how I had a friend pretend they would be taking her to dinner at Stella's, he finally asked how I could have possibly went to New York City for the weekend and planned an elaborated birthday party in Ithaca. I used lean media, the telephone, in the second scenario.
Part III: Afterwards, I asked him to tell me which traveling story was the truth and which one was a lie. He hesitated for a second and then informed me that he thought the second story was a lie. The result of the experiment was that the truth was not detected correctly for the lean media. Instead, the lie was reasoned to be true, in light of the rich media.
To accomplish my lying, I worked on my self-presentation goals- i.e. appearing honest. The deception strategy that I used was lying subtly. I had in fact attended a Paramore concert at the Crazy Donkey, but had done so two summers ago. Thus, we did not have to stumble over inventing details because we had somewhere to draw from. I think that this helped to accomplish lying because there were no nonverbal cues to pick up that would help him to detect any deception on my end. In addition, I knew that since the media used was rich, I needed to make sure that my self-presentation was methodical. However, with respect to the use of the lean media, the telephone, I realize that the only thing that my friend had to focus his attention was the content with which we told our initial lie. When it came to discerning which story I told that was a lie we realized that the reason why he had such difficulty was because we had failed to display cues such as gaze aversions or "ah" speech disturbances. Overall, we feel like the truth bias also played a vital role in the outcome of his choice. He believed that I was going to tell the truth when I spoke with him, and trusted that I would not misrepresent myself.
Assignment 4
This weekend I spent a great deal of time with my friend Jessica. This allowed me to conduct an experiment to determine whether she could detect lies regarding my traveling memories in both rich and lean media. Here are my two encounters:
TRUTH in LEAN MEDIA
This morning I emailed (lean media) my friend Jessica to tell her about my weekend. I told her that on Saturday I went to Rochester to see a local band play at a venue. I told her about the car ride, the city of Rochester, the musicians and the great restaurants we ate at. I described in great depth the outfits the performers wore and my thoughts and feelings throughout the trip. In addition to giving a very detailed account of the events, I also used emoticons, exclamation points and larger sized fonts to better convey my emotions.
LIE in RICH MEDIA
On Sunday I ran into Jessica on the street (face to face interaction), by College Town Bagels. She asked me what I had done the previous night. Instead of telling her the truth (I stayed in and went to sleep early), I explained that I had gone to a friend’s house, watched several movies and hung out on the porch until the morning. I decided to lie because I wanted her to think I had an exciting, eventful and memorable time and not a ordinary and dull one. Because I was telling a lie, my facial expressions and hand gestures were not spontaneous but instead were forced.
Today, I spoke to Jessica and explained to her my experiment. She told me that she believed my story about my trip to Rochester but had doubts about the story I had told her on Sunday. When I informed her that I had lied, she responded that she had noticed something strange in my behavior when I was narrating my story. This supports the Media Richness Theory, which states that we are more likely to lie face to face (rich media) than we are via email (lean media).
To accomplish lying and make my story sound plausible, I tried to make lots of hand gestures and eye contact. Also I chose my words very carefully and diverted the attention off of me several times by asking her questions about her weekend. The media negatively affected my strategy because I lacked a buffer between Jessica and I and felt extremely exposed. This supports the Social Distance Theory which states that lying is uncomfortable and that we use the most “social distant” media to do it.
Jessica told me she was able to detected my lying during our face to face interaction. She relied on the usual cues. She stated that my eye contact seemed too excessive as well as my hand gestures and that my refusal to discuss my weekend made her even more suspicious. Further, Jessica revealed that I took long pauses between my sentences, giving the impression that I was carefully selecting my choice of words. This is something I didn’t know I was doing. Deception detection is more accurate in face to face interactions (rich media) because there are more cues (my hand gestures and facial expressions) and chances for feedback than in a lean media interaction (i.e. email) which can help uncover lies. Also, in CMC, liars can take more time to rehearse lies because of the asynchronous nature of the environment (i.e. time is expected to elapse in between email responses).
In conclusion, I communicated to my friend Jessica two traveling memories: a true one in a lean media (email), and a lie in a rich media (face to face). My lie was noticed right away. What gave it away were my facial expressions, hand gestures, delays in between responses and unnecessary eye contact. All these factors contributed to Jessica’s deception detection.
COMMENTS:
http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment-4option-2-my-best-friend.html
http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/09/4-cancun-or-bahamas.html
TRUTH in LEAN MEDIA
This morning I emailed (lean media) my friend Jessica to tell her about my weekend. I told her that on Saturday I went to Rochester to see a local band play at a venue. I told her about the car ride, the city of Rochester, the musicians and the great restaurants we ate at. I described in great depth the outfits the performers wore and my thoughts and feelings throughout the trip. In addition to giving a very detailed account of the events, I also used emoticons, exclamation points and larger sized fonts to better convey my emotions.
LIE in RICH MEDIA
On Sunday I ran into Jessica on the street (face to face interaction), by College Town Bagels. She asked me what I had done the previous night. Instead of telling her the truth (I stayed in and went to sleep early), I explained that I had gone to a friend’s house, watched several movies and hung out on the porch until the morning. I decided to lie because I wanted her to think I had an exciting, eventful and memorable time and not a ordinary and dull one. Because I was telling a lie, my facial expressions and hand gestures were not spontaneous but instead were forced.
Today, I spoke to Jessica and explained to her my experiment. She told me that she believed my story about my trip to Rochester but had doubts about the story I had told her on Sunday. When I informed her that I had lied, she responded that she had noticed something strange in my behavior when I was narrating my story. This supports the Media Richness Theory, which states that we are more likely to lie face to face (rich media) than we are via email (lean media).
To accomplish lying and make my story sound plausible, I tried to make lots of hand gestures and eye contact. Also I chose my words very carefully and diverted the attention off of me several times by asking her questions about her weekend. The media negatively affected my strategy because I lacked a buffer between Jessica and I and felt extremely exposed. This supports the Social Distance Theory which states that lying is uncomfortable and that we use the most “social distant” media to do it.
Jessica told me she was able to detected my lying during our face to face interaction. She relied on the usual cues. She stated that my eye contact seemed too excessive as well as my hand gestures and that my refusal to discuss my weekend made her even more suspicious. Further, Jessica revealed that I took long pauses between my sentences, giving the impression that I was carefully selecting my choice of words. This is something I didn’t know I was doing. Deception detection is more accurate in face to face interactions (rich media) because there are more cues (my hand gestures and facial expressions) and chances for feedback than in a lean media interaction (i.e. email) which can help uncover lies. Also, in CMC, liars can take more time to rehearse lies because of the asynchronous nature of the environment (i.e. time is expected to elapse in between email responses).
In conclusion, I communicated to my friend Jessica two traveling memories: a true one in a lean media (email), and a lie in a rich media (face to face). My lie was noticed right away. What gave it away were my facial expressions, hand gestures, delays in between responses and unnecessary eye contact. All these factors contributed to Jessica’s deception detection.
COMMENTS:
http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment-4option-2-my-best-friend.html
http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/09/4-cancun-or-bahamas.html
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