Gadget users more likely to be liars
A recent survey of 1,487 people indicates that more than 4 out of 5 people use gadgets and technology to tell little white lies every single day. About 75% of those surveyed said that using devices such as Blackberrys to lie made them feel less guilty than lying to a person’s face.
The most common place for the technologically savvy to stretch the truth is (no surprise here) at work. Even though the 33% who said they didn’t lie at work were obviously lying, 67% of (ironically) honest employees admitted to lying about being sick (43%), finishing work (23%), and making a huge mistake (18%).
UK-based 72 Point, who conducted the survey on behalf of a financial services group, also found that about 40% used gadgets to lie to their families and other loved ones "to spare others’ feelings." Favorite lies included how much a person weighs (32%), ate (35%), or drank (31%); the cost of new clothes (37%); and telling someone how they look in a particular outfit (35%). With fairly innocuous lies like these, it’s again clear that the 60% of respondents who claimed to never have told a lie to their families and/or partners weren’t telling the truth.
I wonder if the surveys were conducted face-to-face or on paper. The former, with participants hooked up to a lie detector, would probably yield more accurate results.
[Yahoo! News]
