“Totally Happened”: 64 Times People Called Out Others For Lying And Were Left With Egg On Their Face (New Pics)

Scrolling through social media can often feel like watching yet another episode of "Things That Never Happened." That's because some (or many) people lie unprovoked, and think nothing of doing so. In 2021, the World Economic Forum published an article warning bluntly, "We are lying more. And social media could be to blame."

The article's author David Markowitz, Assistant Professor of Social Media Data Analytics at the University of Oregon said he'd conducted a study to investigate understand how developments in technology have impacted lying tendencies.

Markovitz found that people told the most lies over the phone or on video chat. In other words, where their lies were unlikely to be recorded. "They told the fewest lies per social interaction via email," he revealed. But he says, the differences across the forms of communication were small.

"Differences among participants – how much people varied in their lying tendencies – were more predictive of deception rates than differences among media," Markovitz writes.

Thankfully, the expert says the world is not filled with people wanting to be Pinocchio.

There’s a low rate of lying across the board, says Markovitz, adding that most people are honest most of the time and "there are only a few prolific liars in a population."