That’s the main result from a recent experiment with 170 student volunteers at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

They were split into two groups and asked to play a game for money. Some would sell shares in a fictional company, while the others would decide how many shares to buy. The twist is that the sellers were told that, at the end of the game, the shares would lose half their value. The buyers didn’t know this and hoped that they would make some money.

The sellers communicated with their buyers in one of four ways: face-to-face, on the phone, or by video or text chat.

At the end of the game, the buyers were asked to report whether their seller had lied to them about the value of the shares. The buyers who got information by text were 95% more likely to have been lied to compared to a video chat. They were also 31% more likely to have been told fibs than those who had face-to-face deals, and 18% more than the people who spoke on the phone.

Scientists say that the video made sellers more aware that they could be being watched, which lowered their desire to lie. Experts call this the ‘spotlight effect’.