Just under six million of us regularly tell white lies or embellish stories on our social media channels. And that trend is set to rise, according to new research from Barclaycard bespoke offers, a new free service which gives all UK shoppers access to thousands of special offers.

Two fifths of fibbers put their dishonesty down to feeling the pressure of needing to have a good time or sound upbeat in their updates. Twenty nine per cent admit that their lives are simply too boring without embellishment, while 40 per cent admit to feeling envious of others’ posts and news.

The survey found that men’s primary motivation for ‘twibbing’ was maintaining a ‘cool online persona’ (15 per cent). They are also twice as likely as women to want to impress their workplace colleagues (22 per cent vs 8 per cent), choosing Twitter over Facebook as their channel of choice. Women prefer to ‘fakebook’ and are more influenced by peer pressure with twice as many fearing the critical eye of their followers and friends (20 per cent vs 9 per cent). They are also twice as likely to doctor a photo by using an editing app such as Instagram or Photoshop (12 per cent vs 6 per cent).

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