Read Between The (Digital) Lines





Can you trust all those instant messages you're getting? A recent US study has found that people tend to lie more if they're not communicating face to face. Here's how to tell if someone is trying to pull the wool over your eyes-virtually

SIGN #1: PREGNANT PAUSES
It takes 10% longer to type a lie than the truth, according to a Brigham Young University study. Researchers observed that people who lie in texts, on Facebook, or ever instant messaging take that much longer to compose their messages, make a lot more edits, and write shorter responses than usual.

SIGN #2: INDIRECT STATEMENTS
Rather than a direct reply, a person who's lying might  resort to giving indirect statements that imply an indirect  answer; for example, "Would I do such a thing?" or "I wouldn't do such a thing", rather than "I didn't do it". A sentence with a contraction is also more likely to be truthful: "I didn't do it" instead of "I did not do it,"

SIGN #:3 NEGATION
Liars tend to use words with negative emotions and have the habit of flipping their language around. For instance, they'll likely say "not good" instead of "bad", or "not happy" instead of "sad".

SIGN #:4 DISTANCING LANGUAGE
Researchers found that online liars are less likely to use the first-person pronoun "I" in their deceptive statements. The use of pronouns also changes: "My" becomes "the", like " I knocked my mug off the table" becomes "The mug fell off the table".