Jeff Hancock studies how we interact through email, text message and social media blips. His mission is to understand how technology today mediates communication.
Jeff Hancock does not believe that the “anonymity of the internet encourages dishonesty.” In fact, he says “the searchability and permanence of information online may even keep us honest.” As an Associate Professor of Cognitive Science and Communications at Cornell University, his research focuses on how people use “deception and irony” when communicating through technology, such as cell phones and online platforms.
His idea is this:
While the impersonality of online interaction can encourage mild fibbing, the fact that it leaves a permanent record of verifiable facts actually keeps us on the straight and narrow.
Hancock has also spent time studying, “how we form impressions of others online, how we manage others’ impressions of ourselves, and how individual personalities interact with online groups.”
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