A 2010 study found that the personality traits presented on a user’s Facebook profile were very highly correlated with the user’s actual personality traits. A 2014 study showed that when people reviewed their 30 most recent text messages, 23 percent reported no deceptive texts, and a vast majority of the remaining people reported that 10 percent or fewer of their texts were deceptive. Studies of texting and Facebook use have also found surprisingly low levels of dishonesty. As she explained in a 2019 paper, online daters may tell small lies “to rectify shortcomings,” but they seldom lie “indiscriminately simply because technology makes lying effortless.” In a 2008 study, the communication professor Catalina Toma and her colleagues found that about 80 percent of participants with online dating profiles lied about their height, weight or age - but usually only to a very small extent (less than one inch off on height and 0.55 years on age, on average). In some cases, it may even be more trustworthy than communication over the phone or face-to-face.Ĭonsider online dating sites.

Despite the proliferation of blatantly false information in certain regions of the internet, research suggests that the content on many online platforms is remarkably trustworthy. When the psychologist Michelle Drouin asked people to estimate the percentage of people who were always honest on social media, the average answer was 2 percent. Even when people present their real identities online, as they often do on social media or online dating websites, we doubt the veracity of much of what they say. The anonymity that the web can provide is notorious for facilitating deception in chat rooms and other virtual venues. How much dishonesty do you expect when interacting with people online?

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