He who lies is trapped
Why It's Stupid to Tell Lies on the Internet.
Honesty is an adornment, but life is better without it. Really? OK: Lying is sleazy, mean, nasty. Nevertheless, we do it sometimes. Because we expect advantages from it, because the truth is uncomfortable, because we would like reality to be different. Bad? It depends. But it is stupid in any case.
The Internet makes many things possible. For example, "Tom, 55, unemployed electrical engineer" can pose as "Melanie, 14, looking for a pen pal" and want to do bad things. It seems less dramatic to make oneself a few years younger, take on a different job, invent vacation experiences and share everything with Twitterers, Facebookers and Flickrn - just like that, in pixels. But beware: virtual quickly becomes real. Search engines expose embellishments, cheating and lies in no time at all. Yasni's quick check serves up everything there is to find about a person on the Internet, from the book wish list on Amazon to posts in forums to photos of the SV Duppelswil tennis match in which you cut such a poor figure. Even ancient stuff stored on some servers or stranded in caches comes to light. It's true: What was once on the net for ten minutes is trapped inside.
If someone stumbles across all the data that has accumulated around your name, it can be embarrassing enough. Freely invented information about yourself makes the embarrassment perfect. It usually happens out of the blue: You've long forgotten your tuned profile on the dating site. Until your employer of choice asks you in the eagerly awaited job interview, "You drive a Ferrari?" It's also stupid when your partner is snooping on your sweetheart on the web. Almost half of the 3,000 Yasni users surveyed check up on their sweetheart via the Internet. Sad enough. It means trouble or more trouble if the results of the investigation prove the snooper right: On Facebook, the better half has entered the status "single", goes jogging regularly, lies nose shorter and legs longer. Just you wait!
If you think you have to ride the cannonball with Pinocchio and Baron Munchausen, you should at least start smart. Otherwise, the discoverer of the unfortunate isle will not only feel lied to, he will also have to digest the fact that people think he is stupid. Injured trust and pride are an explosive mixture. Whether half-true, half-false, concealed or lied in distress - lies have anything but short legs: they always catch up with us. With long strides.
Anne-Friederike Wilhelm
The Internet makes many things possible. For example, "Tom, 55, unemployed electrical engineer" can pose as "Melanie, 14, looking for a pen pal" and want to do bad things. It seems less dramatic to make oneself a few years younger, take on a different job, invent vacation experiences and share everything with Twitterers, Facebookers and Flickrn - just like that, in pixels. But beware: virtual quickly becomes real. Search engines expose embellishments, cheating and lies in no time at all. Yasni's quick check serves up everything there is to find about a person on the Internet, from the book wish list on Amazon to posts in forums to photos of the SV Duppelswil tennis match in which you cut such a poor figure. Even ancient stuff stored on some servers or stranded in caches comes to light. It's true: What was once on the net for ten minutes is trapped inside.
If someone stumbles across all the data that has accumulated around your name, it can be embarrassing enough. Freely invented information about yourself makes the embarrassment perfect. It usually happens out of the blue: You've long forgotten your tuned profile on the dating site. Until your employer of choice asks you in the eagerly awaited job interview, "You drive a Ferrari?" It's also stupid when your partner is snooping on your sweetheart on the web. Almost half of the 3,000 Yasni users surveyed check up on their sweetheart via the Internet. Sad enough. It means trouble or more trouble if the results of the investigation prove the snooper right: On Facebook, the better half has entered the status "single", goes jogging regularly, lies nose shorter and legs longer. Just you wait!
If you think you have to ride the cannonball with Pinocchio and Baron Munchausen, you should at least start smart. Otherwise, the discoverer of the unfortunate isle will not only feel lied to, he will also have to digest the fact that people think he is stupid. Injured trust and pride are an explosive mixture. Whether half-true, half-false, concealed or lied in distress - lies have anything but short legs: they always catch up with us. With long strides.
Anne-Friederike Wilhelm
