A Texting Liar

You know you have done it and it does not take a sophisticated mobile application to figure out if someone else is lying over a text. Researchers from Brigham Young University (BYU) asked more than 100 college students to respond to 30 questions each that were generated by a computer and texted to the participants. In half of their responses, the students were asked to lie. They found that when the students were lying, it took them 10% longer to send the text message, and they made more edits than usual. it’s incredibly difficult to identify when someone is doing so online or over the phone. During texting conversations, you can’t hear the other person’s voice or see their facial expressions — which makes it easier to get away with an untruthful response. Another way to make sure that the other person does not lie over the text is not to ask complicated and hard questions using phones. If something is important, it should be important enough to warrant a face to face conversation.