As I sat through the lectures and went through the
readings, I always thought of myself as
an individual who preferred face to face rather than computer mediated
communication. It made sense that more
outgoing people, as I consider myself, would shy away from online dating. I’ve always thought of it as somewhat
awkward and something that was done out of desperation, but after learning
about the benefits and seeing other aspects that I hadn’t thought of, I can see
the good in it.
Something I hadn’t thought of was a broader picture of
relationships that start via the internet.
Meeting someone in person that you had previously met on a social
network such as Facebook, Twitter, Tinder, and [as we heard in lab last Friday
there are even married couples that have met through] Instagram is technically
a relationship that started through a computer mediated communication. I had previously always associated online
dating to mean only dating that arose from an online dating website such as
eHarmony. Which I suppose is why I found it a bit
strange, I enjoy speaking with someone in
order to find out details. However, I
can see the benefit in having certain qualities in mind that you can look up,
or establishing certain details prior to
conversation. I just think that this can
be somewhat limiting, for it allows
users to select only certain types of people with certain values and interests. I feel that this can be damaging to someone
who doesn’t choose to explore, being
that it allows the mind to remain narrow instead of widen. In a less hippie way of saying it (forgive me
I’m an English major so I have an appreciation for that cheesy sort of thing),
limiting the kind of people we meet can limit the kinds of things we experience
in life. It is all a matter of preference,
after tall, and that is simply my opinion on it.
As previously stated I can also see the benefits. Someone who is unable to invest as much time
in meeting someone, or someone who has serious standards for the type of
partner they wish to have can really use the convenience of an online dating
site. And almost everyone, if not
definitely everyone, has checked out the profile of someone they were interested
in, which is a convenience we were all at some point grateful for.
The second biggest drawback, for me, is putting this
information out there and technically putting out for the whole world to
see. Thankfully privacy settings exist
to limit this, but once it’s out there it’s out there. The biggest drawback would be the lessening
of trustworthiness that exists in today’s world. You can’t always believe a person face to
face, and having the ability to trust them in a setting where detecting a lie
is next to impossible is much more of a challenge. Not to sound so pessimistic.
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