I knew nothing about Rio de Janeiro, but I had Wikipedia as a first class tour guide.
"Did you know Rio de Janeiro means 'River of January?'," I typed to my unsuspecting IM compadre.
"I found that out when I was there in 9th grade. Did I ever tell you about that trip?"
Of course I hadn't. But now was my moment to shine. I told her about the strange sound of the Portuguese language, "Kind of like French people speaking Spanish," and I even sent her a photo from my trip in the South Zone (Ipanema Beach, Wikipedia page).
For my real travel description, I told her about my trip to Australia and New Zealand in 7th grade. I told her about this trip over lunch, trying to be casual about the fact that I had now spoken at length about two vacations without any pretense. She seemed almost wary that I might start telling her about my rock collections and if she really wanted she could see my favorites. She gave a sigh of relief when I told her that the two stories were not some horrible tendency of mine to engage in one-sided conversations-- they were a class assignment, and she was my guinea pig. After a bit of indignation, she told me that she had believed both of my stories because I had told them both with such sincerity. She said that her natural tendency was to believe me, besides, who lies about going to Rio de Janeiro? (-->Me<--)
Her naivety represents the truth bias that many people experience. Most people are simply hardwired to default into belief mode, regardless of the medium. But she did not know that I had an array of computer mediated communication theories to perfect my lie. I thought that I would have the best chance of lying successfully through an IM conversation because all of the non-verbal and physiological cues would be omitted. Furthermore, the Feature-Based Model told me that IM was synchronous like a FtF interaction, but recordless and unlikely to be distributed. Due to these features of the medium, I got all the benefits of not being seen while I lied, as well as the confidence that my statements could not be referred to later in order to check for inconsistencies. In retrospect, I found myself telling many lies about how my emotions fluctuated throughout the fictional trip, and this seems to reflect Professor Hancock's findings that people lie most about feelings on IM. If Social Distance Theory applied to my experience, I would have had the most confidence in lying through e-mail. But due to its rigidity (asynchronicity) and the fact that my fake e-mail would sit there for ages, waiting to be found out as a fake, I found IM much more suitable for lying.
Additionally, I felt that my fictional trip would gain credence from the apparent honesty of my FtF interaction. I am not sure if any theory examines whether people will be more easily deceived if they have a mixture of different channels with different levels of deception. Would meeting someone to talk about something true always encourage them to believe a lie that was told on a leaner medium? I know scam-artists often use this idea in order to build up a false sense of trust, and lets face it, scam-artists have the most functional understanding of CMC of anyone.
I think I might take a trip to Indonesia next... h-t-t-p://w-i-k-i-p
http://comm245yellow.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment-4-option-1-detecting-lie.html#comment-7909251557102549168
http://comm245yellow.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment-4-option-2.html#comment-7302606665697312245
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It seems as though people are willing to believe almost anything if you say it with enough confidence. I was thinking about why it is that the truth bias is so strong in face to face conversation. I think I tend to be more suspicious when someone tells me something that will benefit their reputation or how I think of them. A story about a trip you once took and facts about the destination seems to have bored your friend, regardless of whether it was true or not. Since you had nothing to gain by lying about your trip (except to fulfill this weeks blog requirements), it was more believable.
When my friends tell me of their craziest experiences or most impressive feats, I often write them off as exaggerated accounts of a college student trying to impress their friend. In this instance, I've adjusted my truth bias to be stronger in situations where lying is not benefiting the speaker, and weaker when it does benefit the speaker.
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