IntroductionBased on a research of Online Dating & Relationships, Smith and Duggan stated that the ways of finding partners have been changed with the times. In the past, people used matchmaking, arranged marriages and printed personal ads. With the rapid technology advancement, there are alternative methods – online dating sites and smart phone dating apps. To compare with the people who date traditionally, people who date online are active to choose their dream man or woman by browsing the others profiles (9). They also pointed out that there are different experience between online dating and traditional dating.
Users of online dating can filter the partners by reading the profiles from lots of choices. They need to arrange a time to meet each other in order to have face-to-face communication (9).This paper will provide evidence and use of online dating, and show the effects on psychological, safety and social aspects.Page 2Evidence of online datingBy Joes Ho Pui LamFrom a cross-national survey, Hogan, Li and Dutton report that online dating is prevalent in all countries nowadays. Using the Internet everyday is common for people to have social activities, no matter they are from which countries. Lots of online sources provide a platform for them to have online dating (9).
With the rapid advancement of Web technologies, online dating starts rising from 1997(10). However, Hogan, Li and Dutton use “cohort” effect to show that online dating is not only mainly for the teens who are willing to adopt to technology, but also to the early thirties (10-11). Also, the elder population is more willing to date online (11). In addition, different countries have varied online dating rate because of the rates of Internet co. . people around, such as cafe or a restaurant near a busy street.
Be safe, careful and alert!Page 9ConclusionFrom a report of Dating Safety and Victimization in Traditional and Online Relationship, Koeppel, Smith and Bouffard concluded that with the use of Internet helps increasing online dating and they use it to broaden their social circles and find their partner. People are more willing to accept online dating but their attitude towards online dating is still negative because of the negative impacts (6). In conducting this project, we find out that although online dating is more convenient to broaden their social groups than the traditional methods, the safeness is still under a concern and it will have more negative outcomes in the society. The users should be more careful on using online dating to have safety precautions and protect their personal privacy.
