Online Dating Research Paper

As American’s we live in a society that is gravitated towards a system of instant gratification. Just because certain things may be available to come quicker to you it isn’t always the best quality. We go to a restaurant in order to receive a meal faster and with better quality than we could get ourselves, so that is that what it should be when looking love? Online dating is becoming more and more of a social norm. Through advances in technology, having the ideal mate in mind, and the effect on the dating world one can see some interesting information about online dating. Who decided that we should take the dating world to the web? Well if one takes a moment to consider that society has already taken a lot of our social interactions there.

Some sites promise only mates based upon religion, sexual orientation, career preference, and then they subcategorize from there. Almost any person can basically go to a build-a- man (or woman) workshop, to keep going through an already filtered system, until one has found their ideal match. Brown hair, green eyes, six feet, four inches, oh and must love dogs. One could assume that they could find at least eight hundred people that meet this criterion. Barbara Mantel states in her article “ The large number of potential dates available online…creates a shop around mentality that someone ‘ hotter, smarter and funnier’ awaits in the next OkCupid email (272). It was also concluded in the same article that “ most viewed online dating as a marketplace” (272). What is the world we live in that we shop for the next best option not for a pair of jeans, but for people? “Don’t like the fact that one guy’s hair is thinning? Next. Think a girl can stand to lose a few pounds? Next. Hate that so called ‘beauty mark’ on their cheek? Next, next, next” (qtd in Mantel 272)! This is utter insanity but due to our constant need for instant gratification our wishes of effortless love are coming true. Or are

Emotional cheating is normally a sign of an emotional some sort of issues in the person’s current relationship. Actually, it seems that most of the close relationships that form on the internet do so because of emotional attachment rather than sexual gratification. If a person feels that they have an emotional deficit that is not being met by their significant other, forming a relationship on the internet may be especially attractive to them. That was the thought process of Ashley Madison. This site “focuses on married folks whose trade marked married folks and whose trademarked ‘life is short. Have an affair’” (qtd in Mantel 271). Online affairs truly affect existing face-to-face relationships as much as traditional affairs. If online affairs have the effect they do on existing relationships, how widespread is this in our society? Marriages also were strained by excessive internet use, especially when the time that was spent online was dedicated to their virtual partner. Internet affairs tend to distract one from dealing with problems that exist in real world relationships because the time and energy that could be spent fixing the relationship is now being spent on their online