Lying On FaceBook May Create False Memories
Read Time:1 Minute, 52 Second
Lying your ass off on social networks like FaceBook may impress your friends, but research indicates that it can also create false memories and disconnect us from our true self, the Telegraph reports. “Being competitive and wanting to put our best face forward—seeking support or empathy from our peers—is entirely understandable,” says psychologist Richard Sherry, who helped found the Society for Neuropsychoanalysis.
So what is “the dark side” of such conformity? It’s that online fibbers may become “deeply” lost and forget their actual experience, he says. A new survey by Pencourage doesn’t disagree: It finds that 10% of respondents, and 16% of those age 18 to 24, had their recollections distorted after writing about them, the Daily Mail reports.
An earlier Pencourage survey found that social-media lies usually added luster to otherwise ho-hum evenings or made relationships or careers look better; people said they wrote the posts out of jealousy or “fear of appearing boring.” The only study to measure the impact of social media on memory, by the Psychonomics Bulletin and Review, considered its impact “damaging to autobiographical memory.”
Peter Clayton, a co-founder of Pencourage—which hosts over 65,000 online diaries—says we are “slowly wiping” our memories with “scattered” social-media posts, and would benefit from diaries: “We knew there was a real need for a safe space to preserve and share the true chronicles and lessons of our lives, the ones we actually live and should protect,” he says.
Social media is a virtual den of lies, nonsense, and rumor. It’s shocking to read the number of people, who, without the slightest evidence will believe and propagate everything they read, particularly if there’s a political agenda. One of the worst lies is the assertion, with its roots deep in liberal yellow journalism, is that police officers who have high I.Q’s are not eligible for hire. What’s worse is there are thousands and thousands of people who believe this because they read it on FaceBook. Some will even recount personal experiences no doubt expressed by friends and family who applied for police academies and were rejected for a variety of reasons and none of them associated with a high intelligence.
Thanks to Newser for story contributions.
Happy
0 %
Sad
0 %
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
0 %
Surprise
0 %
0
0
I never lie…my nose has always been this long 😉
Commenting on sites like this one is the closest I get to social media. FaceBook is just a privacy suck. I may not have much privacy left, but I’d like to hang on to what little I still do have.
I hear that E.A. While I am active on FB I do think about the loss of privacy from time to time and am careful not to reveal too much.
I’ve never in my life seen so much BS in one place as I see on FB particularly from people who all of a sudden think they’re lawyers and veteran cops when in fact they know nothing about the subjects beyond what they’ve read on FB. That level of ignorance is actually embarrassing.