This was a great video about the future of lying! I
remember when my daughter was little and my rule was that we shouldn’t lie
because it is wrong. Then comes the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy and Santa
Claus…eek. I thought about it and decided that a little white lie when it comes
to the “magic” of childhood is ok but is it really? As she has gotten older,
she has questioned me on Santa Claus, “mom be honest, is Santa Claus real?” to
which I reply, “yes Yasmeen, there really is a Saint Nicolas.” A technicality, right?
Now that she is a teenager, we have talked about social media and the
importance of being honest. Facebook is huge and daily I am sure you can find
someone “calling out” another on their post without coming right out and saying
that the person is lying.
I am on LinkedIn and I have viewed many profiles of
people I want to connect with and those that want to connect with me. What I have
found is when people I connect with that I do not personally know will rate me
on things like leadership, team building, IT, etc. which I find interesting
because these people don’t know me at all. How can they rate my skills? Some have
even sent me a message asking me to rate them since they rated me. I tend to
ignore these because I would be lying if I rated them on their job skills if I
had no idea what they were capable of or not capable of doing.
I have come across a couple of LinkedIn profiles where
I felt my colleague was stretching the truth on what they did. It came down to
how it was worded so “assisting” on a project became “led” a project. Is it
considered a lie or more like being the “butler” as stated in the video. For
the most part though I have found most of my colleagues are more honest on
LinkedIn. On my profile I have had people suggest that I “fluff” my profile on
some things to make myself more marketable. For example, I don’t work with
budgeting in my department but it was suggested that I list that because I have
previous experience (from about 26 years ago) but I don’t feel comfortable
doing that.
Social networking though it has many advantages it is
a gateway to unethical behavior from something small like lying about where you
are or how good of a parent you are to being a cyberbully. It seems to be so
easy to lie on social media and phone but, people are still honest when it
comes to emails. Perhaps because you can really say how you feel in an email
without being interrupted like you would on a phone call or via text message. I
know that for me it is a lot easier to communicate via email when I need to get
something off my chest.
I have become more distrusting of media and of people
in general these days because it is so easy to tell a lie that lies are the new
truths. Think about how fast an article or missing child post is spread on
Facebook without anyone doing any research to ensure that they are sharing something
that is truthful. Everyone takes everything at face value without doing their
own research. My undergrad Pysch professor used to tell us. “Believe nothing,
Question everything”. That is what I am trying to teach my daughter, do your
research don’t be a follower just because that is what everyone else is doing.
Think for yourself. Lead by example.
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