Me? Serious?

So I've been pondering recently about the seemingly ubiquitious conversational use of the phrase, "Are you serious?" Other variants include, "Seriously?" "No way!" or giving credence to a comment by adding the word "seriously" ("The new Fiona Apple album is seriously great"). I don't know about you, but I say these things a lot. Once I became self-aware, I noticed that lots of people around me do too!

Is this phrase of skepticism a byproduct of the rampant dishonesty and lack of integrity in our society? It seems that we do live in an age where you really can't believe everything you read/hear/see (ESPECIALLY on the internet). We're fed spin, half-truths, and all out lies everywhere we turn (ahem, leaders of our nation).

Perhaps my aforementioned socio-linguistic observation tells of our society's loss of faith in the fellow human's word. Hmm...