assgnmt #4: I talk too much..or too fast..or maybe just stink at lying..

For this homework assignment I chose option one. Luckily, I just went on a trip to China this summer so it was easy to ask one of my friends if I could tell her some stories. Due to my last name, I was assigned to tell the truth in a face to face setting (a rich media) and lie over instant messenger (a lean media). I was happy about this because I never lie, and as we learned in class, there are many cues that occur in face to face situations that let the message receiver know you may be lying. If I had to lie in person I think it would be very obvious. I usually talk very fast, laugh at everything I say that I think is funny, and add a lot of emotion and detail to my stories. If I had to lie, I probably wouldn't be able to be funny, and I would talk much slower as I was trying to figure out how my story should continue. Based on this, I thought I had really good strategies to lie online. I thought she wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between how much I was laughing at my own jokes or smiling at what I was saying. Nor would I have to worry about averting my eyes while trying to think of lies and forget cues such hand motions. Luckily I was able to tell the truth in face to face, and told her a funny story about something that happened when I was on the Great Wall.
When it came to lie online, I told her a story about how I went to a restaurant and the waitress didn't know English very well, and I ended up eating dog when I thought it was duck. However, the fact that I told her some stories in person, and another one over instant messenger made her slightly suspicious from the beginning. I think when I asked her at the end if she knew which story was a lie, she could already tell from my media selection that the instant messenger story was probably not true. The truth bias certainly played a part, because when I was telling her a story face to face there was no reason for her to believe I was lying. She and I are best friends and we trust one another; it would make no sense to lie about an experience I had in China. Also, there were no cues during my face to face interaction to imply I was lying; I talked fast as always, went into a lot of detail, parts of my story interconnected to one another and I was smiling and making eye contact the whole time.
The way I interacted through instant messenger, however, made it obvious to her that I was lying. Not only did my media selection give her a clue, but the story itself was enough for her to know. I tried to use a good strategy and attempted to lie by just typing out exactly what came to mind; I didn’t want to spend too long thinking about it in fear that it would be obvious I was lying (Usually when I type online and have something exciting to say, I’ll type really fast and make lots of spelling errors while I excitedly communicate my story ). I tried to make the story seem humorous, because I knew if I was telling it in person I’d beef up the funny parts to make her laugh, and I tried to use just as many emoticons as I usually would. Despite my efforts, I still typed much slower than I intended because I was busy thinking of how my story could sound realistic. Since I had proper spelling, didn’t seem that excited, and took a while to get the story out, she could tell something was not right. Also, my story was a lot less detailed and I didn’t include as much imagery and descriptions as I usually do face to face. When typing out the lie I didn’t even notice that my story was very linear, with no real purpose or imagery words; for example if it really happened, I would have explained further what it tasted like, or how gross I thought it was, or what the waitress looked like etc.
My friend relied on a few factors to detect my lie. She could tell I used different language and different cues, and the fact that she knows me very well, she was able to tell I was lying. These findings supported Hypothesis 2 that we learned about in class about deception. Hypothesis 2 claims that deception is more easily detected in CMC than FTF because since there is only text, the message receiver can analyze it more and focus on the cues in there, rather than the ones you can easily chance in face to face. Also, the truth bias was reduced because after she heard the story, she knew that if it was true I would have told her face to face as soon as I came back from my trip, not wait until now to tell her via IM. From now on, I’ll just stick to telling my hilarious adventures to my friends face to face :)

Links to my comments:
1. http://comm245purple.blogspot.com/2007/09/4-rich-or-lean-i-am-still-bad-liar.html

2. http://comm245purple.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment4.html