Digital deception: Secrets, Lies and Privacy

via Richard Sambrook and David Brain and Ian Delaney, a thought provoking presentation from the Lift conference, given by Genevieve Bell, who works as an anthropologist at Intel.

Genevieve outlines typical behaviour in that we all tell between 6 and 200 lies a day ranging from low level social interaction to the more pathological and complex. The motivation for lies are examined and 'increasing popularity' accounts for about 10 percent. Women tell fewer but bigger lies then men.

Other topics also covered are:

• Quoting Volker Sommer, 'Self deception is a part of survival. We actively repress things we can not handle.' In simple terms what we choose to withhold is about keeping our information safe.

• Danah Boyd's research focuses on Facebook and MySpace users and has found out that "10 percent of MySpace users are over 100 years old" which stretches credibility somewhat.

• 'Twitter is about making art out of confabulation".
  

• Korean kids apparently value their mobiles being tracked via GPS by their parents.
  
  
• Cornell ran lie detection tests running on text messages and email. 'The bigger the lie the more words you use.

• 'Web 3.0 will be based on a bedrock of confabulation'.