The Future in Online Dating

My Summary:

A new trend of current day society is to online date. The article discusses how the online dating represents an opportunity to document changing cultural surrounding technology-mediated relationship formation and to gain insight into important aspects of online behavior, such as impression formation and self-presentation strategies. Recently the use of online dating services has evolved from a marginal to a mainstream social practice. In fact, the online personals category is one of the most lucrative forms of paid content on the web in the United States. Ubiquitous access to the Internet, the diminished social stigma associated with online dating, and the affordable cost of Internet matchmaking services contribute to the increasingly common perception that online dating is a viable, efficient way to meet dating or long-term relationship partners. Mediated matchmaking is certainly not a new phenomenon: Newspaper personal advertisements have existed since the mid-19th century and video dating was popular in the 1980s. Although scholars working in a variety of academic disciplines have studied these earlier forms of mediated, current Internet dating services are substantively different from these incarnations due to their larger user base and more sophisticated self-presentation options.

Contemporary theoretical perspectives allow us to advance our understanding of how the age-old process of mate-finding is transformed through online strategies and behaviors. For instance, Social Information Processing theory and other frameworks help illuminate computer-mediated communication, interpersonal communication, and impression management processes. The article focuses on the ways in which computer mediated communication interactants manage their online self-presentation and contributes to our knowledge of these processes by examining these issues in the naturalistic context of online dating, using qualitative data gathered from in-depth interviews with online dating participants. In contrast to a technologically deterministic perspective that focuses on the characteristics of the technologies themselves or a socially deterministic approach that privileges user behavior, this article reflects a social shaping perspective. Social shaping of technology acknowledges the ways in which information and communication technologies both shape and are shaped by social practices. Capacities are those aspects of technology that enhance our ability to connect with one another, enact change, and so forth; constraints are those aspects of technology that hinder our ability to achieve these goals.

My Opinions/Questions:

I feel that online dating is what people are relying on more to meet their potential significant other. I think this is because people feel that they can show their true selves to people without having to have any false pretenses. It is also easier for people who are more introverted than others. Do you think people are going to go completely over to online dating eventually? Why do you think people are more inclined to sign up for online dating than try to meet people outside in the real world?