Before now, people despised lies. In fact when you ask a person what he/she hated most, you can predict their response. Nobody ever admitted that they lie or that they can live with someone who lies. People always wanted to be in the midst of people that tell the truth at all times. The simple reason people despise those that lie is because they see them as people not reliable.
But how fast have things turned around in this modern era with the invention of information communication technologies (ICTs). Technologies have bestowed us with innumerable gifts and mobile phone no doubt is among the top ones. With the advent of mobile phones, life has remarkably changed. Ordinarily, the mobile phone was invented to aid communication not only had it aided communication which was its sole aim, it has also aided lies. Mobile phones have drastically changed the meaning of relationship, friendship and even the definition of truth. Men probably lied since their existence on planet earth, with the coming of mobile phones; lying has changed from being unethical to usual stuff. Husbands, wives, children, religious leaders, political leaders in fact, almost if not everyone lie in one way or the other, or for one reason or another. Even when they did not bargain for it, they find themselves indulging in the act without them knowing how they got involved.
The mobile phone came to existence to help mankind, but man’s choice of how the mobile phone could be used is what makes it have a different interpretation.
Lying is now a thing that is rampant in our society. People have come to accept the fact that they lie for certain reasons. It is a known fact that the mobile phone is used to aid more lies than truth these days. What lie do you want to tell that the mobile phone cannot help you convey? Business people are something else when it comes to telling lies on phone. Today it is very rare to see a business man or woman who doesn’t lie on phone just to secure customers or business partner’s relationship. A business man can plead with a customer to wait for him at the shop or office with a promise to be with him within the next few minutes. While the business man had not even left the place he is. When the customer calls him he will say “I am very close, I will be with you in the next 15minutes”. This same excuse will continue until 3 hours later. And when he comes, you will discover that he was still at Onitsha Market as at when the customer called him.   Often times, before a visitor go to a place, he would call the host to know if he/she would be around; and also to inform the host of his/her visit. Many use this as a yardstick to tell lies especially when they are not ready to receive the visitor. They tell the person they are not at home even when they are not doing anything at home.
I keep wondering why people often times lie on phone. What could be their reasons? I know many persons are wondering as well. Here are some of the reasons people keep indulging in the act of lying on phone.
NO EYE CONTACT
Psychologists say that people find it hard to lie “face-to-face” to someone. ‘Eye contact’ has a lot to do with human behaviour. Mobile phones have snapped this eye contact and made it much easier to lie because the person is not physically present with them, and it cannot be easily detected if they lied. The person they lied to is left with the choice of either accepting what they said or letting go of it.
People lie to cover up another lie; there is a maxim which says “when you tell a lie, be ready to tell hundred lies to cover up that lie”. This however has been adduced to why some persons lie on phone. They lie to cover the lie they had lied earlier. This nevertheless, is so rife in intimate relationship. Most relationships have been built and destroyed through lies that have been told on phone. A young girl who double dates tells all sorts of lie to cover up her relationship with both guys so also the guy. Married couples are not left out, as many of them who cheat find it easy to cover up their lies on phone. With the use of the mobile phone, their lies can’t be discovered by their spouse so easily. Some men have become closer to their mobile phones than to their wives. A man can be on the same bed with his wife and be chatting with his girlfriend through his mobile phone. He makes arrangements on where to see her while his wife is there perhaps, lost in the world of dreams. When it’s time for him to go and see his girlfriend, he will call his wife on phone to tell her he has an emergency meeting to attend at the office. By the time it’s late, and the wife calls, he will tell another lie just to cover for the first lie he had told. He would tell his wife that the meeting did not end on time so he could lodge in a hotel with other colleagues.
People lie to impress others. Many people lie to impress their friends and other people around them. This however is most common among the youths of this generation. They lie to be what they are not especially to their friends whom they have not had face-to-face contact with. You hear some who live in Benin saying they live in Abuja and they don’t even know the road to Okene.
Many guys do this when wooing a girl on phone. They tell all sorts of lies just to impress the girl so that she can give in to their proposal. Most guys tell lies to girls they are wooing because they believe that is what girls want; as lie sounds sweeter to them than truth is bitter to them. On the other hand, the girls also lie to the guy wooing them on phone. They lie about their age, habit as well as their personality just to impress the guy so that he may want to know them more.
PEOPLE LIE TO AVERT QUERY
Most people hate it when you shout at them or when you query them. In order for them to escape such especially from those who are higher than them be it at home, school, church or work, they lie on phone. Imagine a situation where someone is supposed to be at work 7am and the person wakes up 7.30am due to tiredness. Before he gets dressed for work it is already 8am. maybe that person is having a presentation at the office and everybody have been seated waiting for him/her; then he gets a phone call while driving, the caller is his/her boss knowing fully well that he/she would get query for saying that he/she woke up late and that could lead to him being fired, he/she will lie to advert that query or possibly fire that could have stir up. They will avert it by putting the blame on traffic congestion.
Many persons will tell you it’s white lies they tell on phone which does not have any effect. The truth is that a lie is a lie. Whether a white lie or the lie you tell for self defense or against someone. Lie can neither be justified nor quantified. Lying has its effect on kids especially the ones whose parents use them to lie just to avert disgrace/embarrassment. Take a scenario where a mother tells her child to receive her call and tell the caller she is not at home, because she is owing the caller cash. I wonder what such mother is expecting that child to grow up becoming. Some house wives would be with their neighbor gossiping and her kid is there with her, then her husband calls “Honey where are you?” she replied “I am at home” meanwhile she is two streets away from her home, and her kid is listening to the mum lying. Tomorrow when the kid starts lying, you will be beating the kid forgetting that you taught the child how to lie. You forgot that children are fast learners when it comes to learning, they copy everything they see their parents and elders do because they look up to them as role model and because they are always rich in what ever they do.
Many kids are pretty liars. They have better lies to tell their parents since their parents are away from home either at the office or doing things for a living. You ask a child to do his assignment as soon as he comes back from school and has eaten. He will be watching cartoon when you call him, he will tell you I’m doing my assignment and will continue watching his cartoon. By the time you come back, you will see that he had just started doing the assignment the moment he heard your car horn close to the gate.