In the Loop: January 4, 2007 Archive

Can we blame technology for our fibbing?

Posted at 1:15 PM on January 4, 2007 by Jeff Horwich

Doing research for our next show, I ran across a survey from the UK pointing out what most of us probably know already: modern communications technologies facilitate lying. For the survey, they're talking cell phones, text messaging, and email. Apparently our propensity to lie in each format increases, in that order.

The write-up I'm linking to here concludes that "the results are still likely to be used as evidence of how technology is driving us apart instead of bringing us together."

Funny -- that's the very question we're getting at for our next show! Is it really isolating us, driving us apart? Or are there lots of compelling reasons to think we're getting more connected, in better ways, than before?