Is happily ever after just a click away?
Is happily ever after only a click away? Americans seem to believe this sentiment more and more each year, as the online dating industry receives $1.049 Billion in annual revenue, according to reports aggregated by Statistic Brain. In addition to these specialized websites, people also meet and start romantic relationships with people via social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter. Despite the popularity of online dating , there are many privacy concerns a great deal of people do not consider upon logging on. How much information are users really exposing about themselves? Are prospective romantic partners telling the truth about themselves or exaggerating or even blatantly lying to each other? Is there trust between these individuals? Most importantly, are these sites effective in helping one find their future spouse or partner?
A study Eli Finkel, associate professor of psychology at Northwestern University, conducted reveals that two people who meet online could be equally as incompatible as a pair who meets at random, reported The Huffington Post. This is because they have yet to meet in person and may not be compatible once they physically meet. Privacy concerns and none or limited face-to-face contact could result in disaster in some online dating situations.
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[Image by flickr user GabrielaP93 / CC licensed]
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While many people were initially skeptical of online dating, it quickly became a popular way for people to attempt find a romantic partner. The 2004 film A Cinderella Story, starring Hilary Duff and Chad Michael Murray, is an example of how mass media has embraced online dating, featuring two teens who initially meet and fall in love in an online chat room. While the pair actually attends the same high school and eventually discovers each other?s identities, their courtship occurs online.
However, a real-life example of how online dating went wrong is captured in the 2010 documentary Catfish, a confirmed true story so shocking that multiple media outlets still doubt its authenticity. The film documents when New York City photographer Nev Schulman met an eight-year-old artist named Abby who seemed to be talented beyond her years. He soon met her 19-year-old sister Megan on Facebook and they began dating exclusively online for several months. However, after some suspicious, Schulman traveled to Megan?s home in Michigan only to discover it was all a scam. The pictures were of a stranger named Aimee and Megan was actually married woman Angela Wesselman, who told ABC she has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Schulman was duped so badly that he released the documentary and now even hosts an MTV show to help prevent online daters from being scammed further.
There are also many online dating fraud scams that involve supposed potential partners stealing money, such as a recent scam in Texas where a woman lost more than $6,000, reported KTXS.
Sites such as joingrouper.com promote immediate social outings. Screenshot by author Rebecca Lundberg
In order to help reduce the number of disastrous online dating situations, USA Today reported, many online dating websites, such as Grouper, are attempting to get people off the computer and out to meet their potential romantic partner sooner rather than later.
The strong presence of movies and TV shows such as the aforementioned ones in the media show that online dating is a much discussed topic that people have vastly different views on. I chose this topic to shed light on the dynamics and possible dangers and communication disruptions online dating poses because so many people are affected by it. I believe it is important for people to inform themselves about the communication and privacy risks of online dating before participating in it.
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A significant aspect that online dating affects is self-disclosure, which Julia T. Wood describes as ?the revelation of personal information about ourselves that others are unlikely to discover in other ways? on pp. 199 of Interpersonal Communication: Everyday Encounters. In other words, self-disclosure is directly telling a person something about yourself. In a joint Rutgers University and Michigan State University study titled ?First Comes Love, then Comes Google: An Investigation of Uncertainty Reduction Strategies and Self-disclosure in Online Dating,? the authors concluded from their survey that people limit self-disclosure while online dating due to concerns about personal security (fear of ?receiving threatening messages), misrepresentation (fear that the person is vastly different from what their profile indicates) and recognition (fear that friends and family will find their profiles and judge them for online dating).
The study found that strategies such as Googling possible partners, comparing profile information to their pictures and emailing follow-up questions could be effective in feeling more comfortable with sharing information and developing the relationship. If someone knows legitimate information about their potential romantic partner, such as their actual geographical location, they are more likely to feel comfortable with them and self-disclose about their lives.
Strategies such as this could help build trust, which Wood defines on pp. 199 as ?believing in another?s reliability (that he or she will do as promised) and emotionally relying on one another to look out for our welfare and our relationship? between two online strangers. Placing one?s trust in a romantic partner means knowing you can count on them to be there for you physically and emotionally. For example, if one tells their romantic partner a secret, one trusts that the other person cares about the quality of the relationship enough to not disclose this information to someone else.
Another important aspect of relationships to focus on if online dating is intimacy, or what Wood describes on pp. 279 as ?feelings of closeness, connection, and tenderness? within a relationship. If one is intimate with another person, they feel they know quite a bit about their life and feelings, have a great deal in common with the other person, and are affectionate with the person in some way. It is essential to somehow establish this in an online relationship in order for it to survive beyond a computer screen.
While online dating is romantic, it is also essential to have what Wood calls a stabilized friendship on pp. 260. This kind of friendship is a foundation for a romantic relationship because it involves trust and open communication, which bring the two people closer together. This kind of foundation assures that the two people in the relationship start strong despite the communication barriers online dating can present.
Investments, which Wood describes as on pp. 198 as ?what we put into relationships that we could not retrieve if the relationship were to end,? are important in online relationships because it takes energy and effort to transfer a romantic relationship from the Internet to real life and maintain the relationship overall. However, situations such as Schulman?s in Catfish should warn online daters to be more informed about a relationship before investing too much.
Finally, framing rules, which Wood says ?define the emotional meaning of situations? on pp. 176, are important in online relationships because the two people need to be able to decide what certain circumstances in their relationship mean in order to define the relationship and be on the same page.
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eHarmony is a popular online dating website that started taking U.S. members in 2000. Screenshot by author Rebecca Lundberg
Overall, my research on online dating and interpersonal communication has helped me realize how complex online dating can be, especially concerning privacy and relationship development. I have seen how it can be disastrous, such as when one or both people are not who they claim to be, and how it can be successful when the two partners are open with each other and go on to develop the relationship in person.
I hope my readers now understand that online dating is a very complex process that involves a great deal of time, effort and research. One should know a great deal about who they are speaking and interacting with online before investing too much in the relationship. Once one is in an online relationship, they should take the time to personally meet the other person and develop the relationship. Hopefully, online daters, prospective online daters or even people who are simply acquainted with online daters will either go into an online relationship knowing it takes a great deal of awareness and effort or inform their friends of the risks and challenges of building these types of relationships.
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References
Gibbs, Jennifer L., Ellison,? Nicole B., & and Lai, Chih-Hui. First comes love, then comes Google: An investigation of uncertainty reduction strategies and self-disclosure in online dating. Communication Research, 38(70), 15-16. doi: 10.1177/0093650210377091
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Wood, Julia T. (2010). Interpersonal communication: Personal encounters. Boston: Wadsworth.
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