On My Way! How Smartphones Are Turning All Of Us Into Liars

Everyone runs late. So when our smartphones going to stop blowing our cover? JL

Katharine Bindley reports in the Wall Street Journal:

People have been running late since long before smartphones existed but never have they had so many opportunities to lie about it in real time. They text “On my way” from their beds, because they’ve started thinking about leaving. They’ll fire off an “En route” while walking to the garage or the elevator (true, both are “on the route” to their destination). At the time of a meeting—still a solid 10 minutes away from where they’re supposed to be—they might write, “Sorry, hit traffic!” because there are other cars on the road. Also thanks to their phones, these people have a pretty good chance of being caught.
Isabella Cillo-Duckett hates having to wait for people who are late. The 17-year-old from Pittsburgh once sat on her front porch monitoring how closely a friend’s arrival aligned with Google Maps’ projected trip time.
But when, on the night of her high school prom a few weeks ago, Ms. Cillo-Duckett got a text from someone inquiring about her status, she replied, “On my way.” She was seated in a chair having her hair curled, at least an hour from leaving.
Her fib didn’t survive for long. As Ms. Cillo-Duckett scrolled through her phone, a Snapchat photo came through from the friend who was waiting for her. Out of habit, Ms. Cillo-Duckett replied with a pic of herself.

“You could tell I wasn’t sitting in a car going anywhere,” she says. “I pretty much shot my own foot with that one.”
People have been running late since long before smartphones existed but never have they had so many opportunities to lie about it in real time.
They text “On my way” from their beds, because they’ve started thinking about leaving. They’ll fire off an “En route” while walking to the garage or the elevator (true, both are “on the route” to their destination). At the time of a meeting—still a solid 10 minutes away from where they’re supposed to be—they might write, “Sorry, hit traffic!” because there are other cars on the road.
Also thanks to their phones, these people have a pretty good chance of being caught.

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What’s your go-to text move when running late? Join the conversation below.

Sacha Gilbert, a mom living in Portland, Ore. says that for her, “On my way” means, “You are now the focus of my attention.” She’s also a big fan of “See you soon” because it “doesn’t pin me down.” Her flexible relationship with the truth about timing recently got her into trouble with her daughter, who’d asked to be picked up from school early and then checked in over text to see if she was on her way.
“I said ‘Yes’ and then she said, ‘Except I can see that your phone is still at the house,’” says Ms. Gilbert, 49.
Ms. Gilbert knew about the location-sharing feature built into iPhones because she’d long been using it to check up on her kids; what she didn’t realize is that she was sharing her location with them. “I can’t do ‘En route’ anymore,” she says. “They can see me.”
Jeff Hancock, a professor in the Department of Communication at Stanford University, has researched how people deceive others through technology. He says the lies people tell over text are a response to the rise of micro-coordination: We can communicate more easily, more often, in more ways than ever before. And although we can be reached at most any time, we don’t always want to be reached. Our options are to either ignore someone or to deceive them with white lies.
“They’re aimed at preventing people feeling bad. They’re aimed at making you not look bad,” said Mr. Hancock, who told a reporter he would call her back in five minutes and then took 30. The other motivation people tend to cite, Mr. Hancock says, is wanting to protect their relationships.
Matthew Brehm, 53, a professor of architecture at the University of Idaho, is rarely late but when he is, he feels a sense of urgency to let people know. He feels terrible about it—just not terrible enough to be honest about what’s keeping him.
A text that says “running late” can actually mean “I just remembered the appointment at the appointed time,” says Mr. Brehm.
Sometimes, he blames a third party, such as his children.
“It’s their fault that I’m running late,” he says. “Because that has in fact happened at some point, it’s an easy go-to.”
Ryan Daniels, a 34-year-old recruiter who lives in Chicago, says he used to be a punctual person. He’s been driven to lateness by friends. Always the first one at the bar during football season, Mr. Daniels found himself holding the table alone while his friends turned up whenever they felt like it.
“Over time I was, like, I’m just going to start coming later,” he says. “It just grew from that.”
Things have since snowballed: Mr. Daniels now regularly loses track of time responding to group texts or looking at Twitter . Once he’s ready to leave, he opens Uber and texts his friends that he’s on his way: “As long as I’ve pressed ‘order’ and it’s searching for a ride, technically, you know, I’m coming that way.”
If the Cubs are playing at home, his Uber might be slow getting to him. Once in the car, he’ll text an ETA, but it doesn’t always match up with the Uber app.
“They’ll say you’ll be there in 15 minutes or something like that, so I’ll just lie and say ‘I’ll be there in five,’” he says. “You never know, sometimes you do get there a little bit faster. I’m a bit of an optimist.”
Eventually, he’s late enough where he feels the need to give a reason.
“I’ll say I took an Uber Pool so that’s why it’s taking a while,” Mr. Daniels says. “It’s not my fault a couple people got picked up along the route.”
He leaves out the fact that those other people didn’t actually exist.