#4 Option 2: Lying is really uncomfortable at least for me.

For this week's assignment, I chose option #2. I thought it would be interesting to test myself how good I am at making and detecting lies. I conducted the experiment with my friend Jenna who is also in Green Blog. First, we talked on AIM. Jenna told me about her trip to Disney Land in California. I talked about my bicycle trip with my cousin in Korea. After both of us took turn to tell a story, we continued out conversation on the phone. Jenna’s second story was her trip to Japan, especially about the episode of her learning Japanese flute and performing in a form of a marching band, and mine was about how I explored the city where I just moved to when I was in third grade. And then, we made our guess. Although both of us found detecting lies hard, our guess was correct. It turned out that all the stories told online were fake, and stories told over the phone were all real.

Our experiment supported Social Distance Theory. When we were giving feedbacks to each other after the experiment, both of us agreed on that it felt uncomfortable and awkward to lie to someone. When Jenna was telling me her fake traveling story, she relatively frequently paused with saying something like “so yeah.” Her story ended a bit abruptly and it made me think that she seems to be reluctant to talk in detail about her trip. When it was my turn to tell a story on AIM, I was not able to make up a lie, so I asked Jenna to give me more time to think. As Social Distance Theory says, I chose leaner media with higher social distance to tell a lie. This way, I can show that I am uncomfortable with topic I was talking about as small as possible. Both of us chose to tell real stories on the phone. Reason why I chose this was that if I tell her a fake story, there are too many cues that might be able to reveal whether I was lying or not such as the tone of my voice. I thought I’d rather talk about fake on online and real one on the phone, so there will be less chance for Jenna to detect my lies. Jenna had the same preference. She preferred the media with higher social distance to tell a lie.

I would not say Social Distance Theory is valid in all situations. However, it seems that for someone who is relatively a bad liar would agree with this theory and has had experiences supporting this theory.