Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Swipe Me an (Honest) Match: Deception Dynamics in Mobile Dating Messages

• In Event: Digital Deception

Abstract

Romantic relationships now begin, develop, and dissolve on the mobile phone. The extant literature suggests that deception is a salient issue for new online relationships, but it is unclear how often lies permeate the conversations before daters meet face-to-face. We collected mobile dating conversations and approximately 20% of all messages sent to a partner were rated as deceptive. Further, approximately one third of lies were used to avoid social interactions with the date, while other deceptions were about personal interests and daily activities. Participants also rated 18% of their partner’s messages as potentially deceptive and lies contained themes about availability management and the sincerity of compliments. Finally, we observed that the participant’s rate of lying was highly correlated with the number of messages from their partner that they rated as lies. These data suggest that mobile dating conversations present a fruitful domain to evaluate deception in computer-mediated communication.

Authors

• David Matthew Markowitz, Stanford University

• Jeff Hancock