Looking for Love in the Twenty First Century: Online Dating

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Recommended: Positive and negative effects of online dating

Online dating has become a hot trend in today’s society with numbers of sites and memberships growing everyday. “First, individuals do no have to leave their homes or workplaces to date… Second, the anonymity feature of the internet allows individuals to participate privately in dating without the oversight of others or the fear of stigma. Third, interactive online dating allows customers to experience new forms of interaction… Fourth, online dating sites serve up ‘perfect matches’ quickly,” (Rege 494). What is online dating? “Online dating sites are Internet tools designed to facilitate ‘connections’ between users who are seeking romantic and/or sexual partners,” (Fullick 546). Dating networks have always existed, even before the Internet, but the Internet has allowed this network to grow rapidly. The struggle with the Internet and online dating is anonymity and depicting an identity online. To further my research, I will look at multiple sources and studies to discuss the complexities of online dating.
“The first major Internet dating Web site is widely held to be the combination of kiss.com and match.com, which were both registered by the same person in 1994 and 1995 respectively,” (Azad et al. 2). During this period, most dating sites focused on international dating and ‘mail order bride’ services. In 1996, Yahoo! had 16 dating websites listed, such as friendfinder.com and OneandOnly.com. In 1998, the movie “You’ve Got Mail” started changing peoples minds about meeting someone on the web and “showcased the Web as a tool for bringing people together,” (Azad et al. 2).
One of the challenges online dating sites faced was in 2002 when Friendster and Myspace were launched. This was a challenge because “people could meet potenti...

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...iamson. “Dispositional factors predicting use of online dating sites and behaviors related to online dating,” Computers in Human Behavior, Volume 33, April 2014, Pages 113-118, ISSN 0747-5632, .

Manning, Jimmie. “Online Dating.” Encyclopedia of Gender and Society. Ed. Jodi O'Brien. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2009. 623-24. SAGE knowledge. Web. 12 Mar. 2014.

Rege, Aunshu;. "International Journal of Cyber Criminology-Aunshul Rege - December 2009." International Journal of Cyber Criminology-Aunshul Rege - December 2009. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2014. .

Whitty, Monica T., Baker, Andrea J. Inman,James A. Online Matchmaking. Ed. edited by Monica T. Whitty, Andrea J. Baker,and James A.Inman. New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, 2007. Web.

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