The Changing Face of Online Dating

Published on June 15, 2010

Photo by Reign4ADay
Gone are the days when internet dating sites were for the desperate and the deranged. They used to have a pretty bad reputation with plenty of horror stories attached: people not being who they said they were, people going missing, identity theft – we’ve heard them all. But something has happened over the last five or so years that has made online dating not only acceptable but an intrinsic part of people’s lives.

Just by looking at the figures we can see the impact it’s had all over the world. China is the biggest user of these sites with 140 million citizens logging in. The US tails behind with 40 million users and India comes third with 15 million. 40% of American singles use the service and dating giant eHarmony has even claimed to be responsible for 2% of US marriages. Some are even saying that this new phenomenon is already bigger than the pornography industry. So what has triggered this dramatic change from horror story to success story? Here are a few factors:

A New Generation

The internet has simply boomed over the last two decades. A generation has grown up using it and more and more people have internet access every day. With the world gradually becoming familiar with this service, it is unsurprising that online sites are becoming increasingly popular. The younger generations have spent years communicating on cyber-space – on MSN, MySpace and Facebook. They are gradually passing their sensible approach to online communication on to their elders and persuading them that, with a certain degree of caution, it is perfectly safe. This has definitely benefited dating sites.

A New Approach

Rather than ambiguous sites run by people who are just trying to make some cash, online dating now has brains behind it. Academics have been employed to really think about the question of how to match people with each other and predict compatibility. The company eHarmony constructs your personality profile with a detailed questionnaire and then finds matches based on this. Other sites instead match people based on lifestyle similarities. Results are reviewed constantly, meaning that the sites are updated to fulfil customer demands. In short, online dating has become mainstream and has some very clever people making it a successful way to meet someone truly special.

A New Language

Initially, people were concerned that meeting someone online misses out some key social cues. This means that people can be easily deceptive and misleading – lying is easier when it’s not face-to-face. However, specialists have proved that we are developing ways to fill in these blanks – photographs, how quickly people respond to messages, what their e-mail address is – lots of things on the web stand in for facial expressions and gestures. Also, as people usually meet quite early in the process, lying is often pointless. What this type of communication does do, however, is remove shyness and make people open and more confident to be themselves.

A New Lifestyle

People are very busy in the 21st century. We simply don’t have time to wait around under sprigs of mistletoe or even in crowded bars looking for Prince Charming. The new attitude seems to be: why wait when a dating site can do it for you? People who meet on dating sites have an average courtship period of 18 months, compared with the usual 42 months. So, dating sites speed up the process and therefore suit our manic modern lifestyles.

Whether you’re in Birmingham dating or you’re in London dating – every city and every country’s dating scene is being taken over by the cyber-world. With innovative, time-saving technology behind it that is producing more and more success stories, we can only embrace this new culture.

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