about online dating

10 Shocking Facts That You Should Be Aware Of In Midlife. There are millions of us mid-lifers who are either online dating or know someone that has. In fact, half of the world’s population know someone who dates a person who they met online. Anyone who finds themselves single in mid-life will no doubt be considering online dating as an option for finding a relationship. With so many people online dating, check out these facts that you should know about!

1. 51% of people online are already in a relationship. 51% of the people seeking a relationship online are already in a relationship and 11% are married. A scary thought when navigating through all those profiles! 2. 1 in 10 sex offenders use online dating platforms to meet people. We don’t mean to scare you, but around 3% of men on dating websites are psychopaths. This doesn’t mean you should online date, however, and there is no proof that it’s more dangerous than regular dating. With all these things, caution is key and don’t put yourself in any vulnerable positions with people you don’t know. 3. Online couples are mostly like to break up after 3-5 months. Yep, not all relationships will last forever, and the 3-5 month mark is the most common for breaking up. The top reasons for breaking up are distance, cheating or loss of interest. 4.You may keep seeing the same faces. 5.10% of online daters quit after three months. Its true – as great as online dating can be, sometimes it can also be frustrating. If people don’t find the perfect person within the first three months, they will quit and one in 10 will give up after 90 days! 6. 48% of online relationships end over email or messaging. When you meet online, it may be no surprise that you might break up online, with 48% of people ending their relationship electronically. 7. More than half of people lie on their profile. Another reason to be cautious when speaking to people online. People always want to present the best version of themselves, but around half of the users make up some or all of the profile information. 40% of men lie about their jobs, and 20% of women use photos from when they were younger. 8. 33% of women have sex on the first date after meeting online. Yes, some people only online date because they want to have sex with someone, and there are websites created just for this. Online dating means that people can easily connect with like-minded people who want the same things. 9. 64% of users say that shared interest is the most important factors. Two-thirds of people say that their number one thing they look for online is someone with common interests, but looks isnt far behind with 49% rating that most important. 10. More than 7,500 dating sites exist worldwide. According to Online Dating Magazine, there are more than 7,500 online dating websites — over 2,500 in the United States and 5,000 around the world. Of course, there are the big sites like match.com and eHarmony, but there are also a whole host of niche sites for the less mainstream daters including clowns, Trekkies, and even sea captains! In fact, each day around 3 million dating sites are created across the world. That’s enough to get confusing for any online dater!

The growing number of online dating sites provides a great way to build new relationships and meet new people. However, like most things in life, there are positives and negatives. Especially for midlife daters coming into dating after years in along-termm relationship, we can be a bit naïve. It can be a bit of a shock if you are unaware of some of the negatives of online behaviour and the amount of time and effort it takes to make it work. Lots of people have a lot of fun meeting new friends and partners online, so do not let the drawbacks put you of – just be careful!

10 facts about Americans and online dating. In the more than two decades since the launch of commercial dating sites such as Match.com, online dating has evolved into a multibillion-dollar industry serving customers around the world. A new Pew Research Center study explores how dating sites and apps have transformed the way Americans meet and develop relationships, and how the users of these services feel . 1 Three-in-ten U.S. adults say they have ever used a dating site or app, but this varies significantly by age and sexual orientation. While 48% of 18- to 29-year-olds say have ever used a dating site or app, the share is 38% among those ages 30 to 49 and even lower for those 50 and older (16%). At the same time, personal experiences with online dating greatly differ by sexual orientation. Lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB) adults are roughly twice as likely as those who are straight to say they ever used a dating platform (55% vs. 28%). 2 A small share of Americans say they have been in a committed relationship with or married someone they met through a dating site or app. About one-in-ten U.S. adults say this (12%), though these shares are higher among LGB adults, as well as those ages 18 to 49. Pew Research Center has long studied the changing nature of romantic relationships and the role of digital technology in how people meet potential partners and navigate web-based dating platforms. This particular report focuses on the patterns, experiences and attitudes related to online dating in America. These findings are based on a survey conducted Oct. 16 to 28, 2019, among 4,860 U.S. adults. This includes those who took part as members of Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses, as well as respondents from the Ipsos KnowledgePanel who indicated that they identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB). The margin of sampling error for the full sample is plus or minus 2.1 percentage points. Recruiting ATP panelists by phone or mail ensures that nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. This gives us confidence that any sample can represent the whole U.S. adult population (see our Methods 101 explainer on random sampling). To further ensure that each ATP survey reflects a balanced cross-section of the nation, the data are weighted to match the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. For more, see the report’s methodology about the project. You can also find the questions asked, and the answers the public provided, in this topline. 3 Roughly six-in-ten online daters (57%) say they have had an overall positive experience with these platforms, including 14% who describe their experience as very positive and 43% who say it was somewhat positive. Fewer users – though still about four-in-ten – describe their online dating experience as at least somewhat negative, including 9% who describe it as very negative. People’s assessments of their online dating experiences vary widely by socioeconomic factors. Around six-in-ten online daters with a bachelor’s or advanced degree (63%) say their experience has been very or somewhat positive, compared with 47% among those who have a high school diploma or less. The ratings online daters give their overall experience do not vary statistically by gender or race and ethnicity. 4 While online daters generally say their overall experience was positive, they also point out some of the downsides of online dating. By a wide margin, Americans who have used a dating site or app in the past year say their recent experience left them feeling more frustrated (45%) than hopeful (28%). Other sentiments are more evenly balanced between positive and negative feelings. Some 35% of current or recent users say that in the past year online dating has made them feel more pessimistic, while 29% say these platforms left them feeling more optimistic. Similarly, 32% say online dating sites or apps made them feel more confident, whereas 25% say it left them feeling more insecure. 5 Majorities of online daters say it was at least somewhat easy to find potentially compatible partners. Many online daters say they could find people on these platforms who they were physically attracted to, shared their hobbies and interests, seemed like someone they would want to meet in person or were looking for the same kind of relationship as them. At the same time, there are some gender differences in how hard or easy users say it was to find compatible partners. For example, women who have ever used a dating site or app are more likely than men to say they have found it very or somewhat difficult to find people they were physical attracted to (36% vs. 21%) or who like someone they would want to meet in person (39% vs. 32%). By contrast, male users are more inclined than female users to say it was at least somewhat difficult to find people who shared their hobbies and interests (41% vs. 30%). 6 Women are more likely than men to categorize certain information as essential to see in other users’ profiles. Among online daters, 72% of women say it was very important to them that the profiles they looked at included the type of relationship the person was looking for, compared with about half of men (53%). Women who have online dated are also more likely than men to say it was very important to them that the profiles they looked through included a person’s religious beliefs (32% vs. 18%), occupation (27% vs. 8%) or height (22% vs. 8%). Other gender differences – such as the importance of users including their hobbies and interests, their racial or ethnic background or their political affiliation – are more modest. 7 There are stark gender differences in the amount of attention online daters say they received on these sites or apps. Overall, online daters are more likely to say they did not receive enough messages than to say they received too many, but users’ experiences vary by gender. Roughly six-in-ten men who have online dated in the past five years (57%) say they feel as if they did not get enough messages, while just 24% of women say the same. Meanwhile, women who have online dated in this time period are five times as likely as men to think they were sent too many messages (30% vs. 6%). 8 Younger women are especially likely to report having troublesome interactions on online dating platforms. About three-in-ten or more online dating users say someone continued to contact them on a dating site or app after they said they were not interested (37%), sent them a sexually explicit message or image they didn’t ask for (35%) or called them an offensive name (28%). About one-in-ten (9%) say another user has threated to physically harm them. These rates are even higher among younger women. Six-in-ten female users ages 18 to 34 say someone on a dating site or app continued to contact them after they said they were not interested, while 57% report that another user has sent them a sexually explicit message or image they didn’t ask for. At the same time, 44% report that someone called them an offense name on a dating site or app, while 19% say they have had someone threaten to physically harm them. 9 Americans have varying views about the safety of online dating. Roughly half of Americans overall (53%) say dating sites and apps are a very or somewhat safe way to meet people, while 46% believe they are not too or not at all safe. Public perceptions about the safety of online dating vary substantially by personal experience. A majority of Americans who have ever used a dating site or app (71%) see online dating as a very or somewhat safe way to meet someone, compared with 47% of those who have never used these platforms. Among the public as a whole, women are far more likely than men to say dating sites and apps are not a safe way to meet people (53% vs. 39%). Views on this question also vary substantially by age, educational attainment and race and ethnicity. 10 More than half of Americans (54%) say relationships that begin on a dating site or app are just as successful as those that begin in person. A smaller share of U.S. adults – though still about four-in-ten – say these kinds of relationships are less successful than relationships that begin in person. At the same time, half of Americans say online dating has had neither a positive nor negative effect on dating and relationships. Smaller shares say these platforms have had a mostly positive (22%) or mostly negative effect (26%). The Ugly Truth . Are we sacrificing love for convenience?

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and conventional wisdom both suggest that love is a fundamental human need. Most people meet their significant others through their social circles or work/school functions. However, these pools can be relatively shallow. In the search for a potential date, more and more people are switching to less traditional methods. Online dating is really popular. Using the internet is really popular. A survey conducted in 2013 found that 77% of people considered it “very important” to have their smartphones with them at all times. With the rise of apps like Tinder (and the various copycat models), who could blame them? If you want to think about dating as a numbers game (and apparently many people do), you could probably swipe left/right between 10 to 100 times in the span of time that it would take you to interact with one potential date in ‘real life’. With the popularity of sites like eHarmony, match.com, OkCupid and countless others, the stigma of online dating has diminished considerably in the last decade. According to the Pew Research Center, the overwhelming majority of Americans suggest that online dating is a good way to meet people. Online dating services are now the second most popular way to meet a partner. The popularity of online dating is being driven by several things, but a major factor is time. Online dating presents an effective solution to a serious problem. Browsing profiles isn’t nearly as time-consuming (or daunting) as mixing with people in a social context. Statistics suggest that about 1 in 5 relationships begin online nowadays. It’s estimated that by 2040, 70% of us will have met our significant other online. The problem with a lot of online dating applications is that they don’t really work. Before you throw caution to the wind and empty your wallet into the pockets of an online app with the reckless abandon of a love-struck teenager, there are a few things you should know. 1. People lie on their online dating profiles. OK, this is hardly an earth-shattering revelation. Well duh, people want to be appealing. Most people probably wouldn’t be surprised to learn that it’s more common for people to lie in their online profile than be completely honest. A study of over 1,000 online daters in the US and UK conducted by global research agency OpinionMatters founds some very interesting statistics. A total of 53% of US participants admitted to having lied in their online dating profile. Women apparently lied more than men, with the most common dishonesties being about looks. Over 20% of women posted photos of their younger selves. But men were only marginally better. Their most common lies were about their financial situation, specifically about having a better job (financially) than they actually do. More than 40% of men indicated that they did this, but the tactic was also employed by nearly a third of women. While dishonesty was slightly less prevalent among the British sample, 44% did admit to lying in their online profile. In both the US and UK samples, dishonesty declined with age. Maybe older people are just more interested in projecting their real self, rather than an imagined or ideal version. 2. Looking for a relationship?

That must mean all you want is sex. One of the big problems with online dating for women is that, although there are genuine relationship-seeking men on the sites, there are also plenty of guys on there simply looking for sex. While most people would agree that on average men are more eager for sex than women, it seems that many men make the assumption that if a woman has an online dating presence, she’s interested in sleeping with relative strangers. Online dating does represent the convenience of being able to meet others that you possibly never would have otherwise, but women should be aware that they probably will receive rude/disgusting messages from horny guys, sexual propositions/requests, dick pics, and a lot of creepy vibes. 3. Negotiating the scam-ternet. Let’s be honest, the internet is really just a super elaborate and sophisticated farce designed to distract you from having your pockets picked by greasy conmen in cheap suits, right?

Not quite, but it is full of unscrupulous vendors looking to separate you from your money by whatever means possible (in other news, have you heard about the secret to getting killer abs in less than 7 minutes using this 1 weird trick…?). There are pitfalls and tripwires in every sphere of life, but this may be particularly true in the context of online dating. There are literally hundreds (if not thousands) of online scams, and I’m not going to run through any in detail here, but do some research before you go giving your bank details to ‘Nigerian princes’ promising ‘fun moments’. As a matter of fact, you should probably be wary of any person, group or entity asking for any kind of financial or personal information. It might even be advisable to follow these general guidelines: Drive yourself to the date (your date doesn’t need to know where you live), keep an eye on your drink/food (…), pay half of the bill (you don’t need your date having expectations of repayment). Of course, there are plenty more do’s and do not’s of online dating, but I guess the most important thing here is to use your common sense. If something feels off, trust your gut. You don’t necessarily have to develop a ‘trust no-one and sleep with one eye open’ approach to online dating, but it is probably worthwhile to have a healthy degree of skepticism in general. 4. Relationships don’t last. Never mind the fact that more than one-third of all people who use online dating sites have never actually gone on a date with someone they met online, those that somehow do manage to find someone else they are willing to marry and who is willing to marry them (a vanishingly tiny subset of online daters) face an uphill battle. According to research conducted at Michigan State University, relationships that start out online are 28% more likely to break down in their first year than relationships where the couples first met face-to-face. And it gets worse. Couples who met online are nearly three times as likely to get divorced as couples that met face-to-face. However, it isn’t all misery and woe. While the overwhelming majority of romantic relationships still begin offline, around 5% of Americans who are currently in either a committed relationship or marriage indicate that they met their significant other online. 5. It makes you picky and judgmental. It’s very easy to send one course back (or even one after another) when the menu is overflowing with other potential courses. According to the Association for Psychological Science, reviewing multiple candidates causes people to be more judgmental and inclined to dismiss a not-quite-perfect candidate than they otherwise would be in a face-to-face meeting. Online Dating. Related terms: Online dating. Abstract. Online dating Web sites are a specific type of social media designed for people to find romantic partners and friends. The industry is extremely popular. There are roughly 54 million single Americans, and 41 million people have tried online dating. Ten percent of Americans—and ≈ 40% of single Americans—have used an online dating service. On dating sites, people create profiles for themselves. The personal information in these profiles is quite extensive. This chapter presents an overview of the different types of information people share on these sites and how to find those people. Ethnography. 9.5.5 Virtual Ethnography. Most of the examples discussed thus far in this chapter involve “real-world” ethnographies—studies of groups and communities situated in familiar, physical settings. This is not an inherent limitation in the technique—ethnography does not always mean a researcher being present physically to observe the group or community. The growth of countless online communities supporting many different types of interaction presents the possibility of “virtual ethnography.” The term “virtual ethnography” has been used to describe different things, such as using web cams or videos (Blomberg et al., 2007). However, this in no way involves participation and, furthermore, there is a high likelihood of missing a lot of contextual information as people may act differently for the camera, shut off the camera at times, or avoid the area with the camera. If the researcher is not in the context, this leads to a poorer quality of data collection and understanding. However, when ethnographic methods are used to research a community that is strictly virtual or online, there is less likelihood of missing anything, as the “there” is only online. If participation is the goal, if being in the context is the goal, researchers can “be” in a virtual community and experience it as everyone else is experiencing it. The virtual nature of these communities presents some opportunities and challenges for ethnographic researchers. Online identity is much more fluid and controllable than it is in the real world. In many online groups, message boards, and virtual worlds, users can control exactly what others know about us and how they see us. This can be very convenient for ethnographic study, as researchers can easily define themselves as complete participants (with some limitations), without having to face the challenge of playing those roles in frequent face-to-face relationships. Furthermore, researchers might find that maintaining scientific objectivity is relatively easy when all interaction with the subjects of study are conducted through the mediation of a computer screen. The tenuous nature of links between online identities presents some interesting possibilities for ethnographers. As many online communities require little, if any, direct link between a virtual identity and a real person, conducting an ethnographic study without revealing one's identity as a researcher is a very real possibility. Furthermore, the transient and artificial notion of participation in these virtual worlds makes complete participation a very real possibility. Before embarking on any study of this sort, you might want to consider what circumstances merit revealing your identity as a researcher. For example, you might decide to “out” yourself to an individual or a larger group if you feel that other participants are becoming suspicious of your motives. The construction of multiple identities presents further intriguing opportunities. As many virtual communities allow users to create multiple online identities, virtual ethnographers might use multiple online manifestations to examine community responses to different types of behavior or even to create situations that might be the focus of studies. For example, a researcher conducting a virtual ethnography might start an argument between two online identities that she controls as a means of studying how other participants would react. Of course, this multiplicity of identities cuts both ways as well. Virtual ethnographers may face greater challenges in evaluating the honesty of the people with whom they are interacting. Barring external confirmation—such as verifiable real-world interactions—it may be hard to confirm the claimed identities of online interlocutors. As virtual environments run the gamut from simple text-based forums to social networks and online worlds, the types of ethnography that may be conducted will also change. Fully graphical environments, such as Second Life, present opportunities for observing group interaction, physical positioning, and other visual cues that are not generally available in text-only environments. Although these cues may make ethnographies of graphical virtual worlds seem more “real” than other virtual ethnographies, it is important to note that the questions of identity don't ever disappear. In Section 9.4.2, the Ethnographic Research of Your Own Community sidebar presented information about the ethnographic research done into online empathic support communities. The example given was of an online support community for people with a torn ACL (Maloney-Krichmar and Preece, 2005). Ethnographic methods have also been used to examine multiplayer virtual worlds. For instance, Ducheneaut and Moore used ethnographic methods to research the Star Wars Galaxies multiperson online role-playing game. The two researchers each created a character (one a combat-oriented character, the other an entertainer) and logged in for a minimum of 4 hours per week for 3 months. They later created two additional characters and tried to encourage other role-playing individuals in the Star Wars Galaxies to communicate with their characters (Ducheneaut and Moore, 2004). Specifically, they spent time in locations collecting data on the frequency and type of visitors, types of interaction, and related factors that could be used to characterize the social activity in these places (Ducheneaut et al., 2007). As complete participants, they were able to participate in genuine interactions, without having to reveal themselves as researchers or to maintain the pretense of being “real” group members. Of course, many online communities have face-to-face components and this is where the dividing line between virtual and physical can become very complex. The Researching Online Dating sidebar discusses the situation of research into online dating communities. In these communities, the interaction starts out virtual but has the stated goal of moving towards face-to-face meetings. Researching Online Dating. One of the more fascinating topics being addressed by HCI researchers in recent times is the topic of online dating. Individuals go online to various sites (such as www.eharmony.com), providing photos and descriptions of their interests in the hopes that they might meet people for dates or relationships. With millions of subscribers of various ages, these sites represent an interesting area for HCI research. Although a number of approaches have been used to study online dating sites, ethnography has not been the primary approach. This raises an interesting question—can ethnography be applied to online dating?

At first this might seem like a research focus on individuals but online dating communities are groups with group norms, accepted practices, and shared group communication tools (such as chat rooms). These online groups differ primarily from work groups in terms of the goal of the interaction (dating, not work), the goal of the presentation (to look attractive and interesting, rather than to present information), and the transient population of members in the group (people join and leave the online dating community very rapidly). An example of a group norm and practice is that if you e-mail someone and they do not respond, it is considered totally inappropriate to e-mail them a second time. Hancock et al. (2007) took the approach of recruiting people who were already involved in online dating, to determine the accuracy of their online dating profiles. A self-selected group responded to their recruitment advertisement. The researcher team met with these 80 participants, who presented copies of their online dating profiles (Hancock et al., 2007). Participants were asked to rate the accuracy of their profiles with regard to height, weight, and age. Only 18% of participants had inaccurate age information in their profile but 48% of participants had inaccurate height information and 59% of participants had inaccurate weight information in their online profile. An analysis of the participants' perception of profile accuracy showed that most participants were aware when their profile information was not accurate and were aware that this could be potentially deceptive. Fiore and Donath (2005) examined how people in online dating communities tend to communicate with other people who have similar interests and preferences. The researchers were able to broker an agreement with a dating site to access profiles, statistics, and e-mails (Fiore and Donath, 2005). It is unclear in the paper if users were aware that their profile information was shared with researchers, although it is unlikely (since the researchers did analysis on over 236,000 messages sent from over 29,000 users to over 51,000 users). An analysis of 110,000 conversations (messages between a unique pair of users), found that 78% were single messages that were not responded to by the recipient. Users were more likely to contact other users who had similar characteristics (such as “wants children,” smoking, educational level, and religion) and responses to those initial contacts were even more highly correlated to the presence of similar characteristics. Note that “user” is a more appropriate term than “participant,” since these users did not choose to participate in the research. Lee and Bruckman (2007) examined the use of general purpose social networking sites (such as MySpace and Facebook) for dating. They interviewed 12 people who had used Friendster or MySpace for dating (Lee and Bruckman, 2007), recruited through public postings (e.g. on Craigslist) and word of mouth. Although some of the interviews were in person and some were conducted by phone, all of the participants allowed the researchers to examine their social networking profiles. Participants described the credibility provided by contacts within the social networks as an advantage in meeting potential dates, as friends would be likely to challenge or respond negatively to misrepresentation. Participants specifically found the set of “top friends” useful for providing credible information. The number of friends, types of comment left by friends, and types of picture posted also provided useful details about potential dates. Participants who began dating people met on a social networking site also commented that the site could provide useful feedback on their relationship status, through their rank on their new partner’s “top friends” list. Fiore et al. (2008) tried to identify online dating features most strongly associated with assessments of the attractiveness of potential dates. They used a random selection of 25 male and 25 female profiles from the Yahoo!

Personals website, five each from different cities in the USA (Fiore et al., 2008), constructing four different versions of each profile: picture, free text, fixed-choice answers, and full profile, which includes all three sections. A group primarily made up of university students evaluated the various profile components for attractiveness. The researchers found that the photo had the greatest impact on perceptions of attractiveness, but the free text also greatly influenced perceptions of attractiveness. The fixed-question responses did not impact on perceptions of attractiveness, except in cases where they were used to evaluate “deal-breakers,” such as smoking. Although the complex phenomena and group dynamics of online dating might make ethnography seem an appealing research method, there are a number of troubling ethical and logistical questions. If you were to research online dating communities, would you be a true participant?

Would the emotion of meeting and dating these people cause you to lose your sense of objectivity?

Furthermore, is it ethical to go on a date acting as if a long-term relationship was the main goal, when it is a research exercise? Would that be misleading? If you were to notify people that you are doing research, would that lead to loss of credibility or access into the community? If you were to not notify people about your research, wouldn't that be unethical? Would it even be possible to be a complete observer, watching from the sidelines?

How would that work?

Note that in two of the research studies above, profiles or data were taken from online dating sites and used in research studies, without the express permission of the owners (although the terms and conditions of site usage would allow it). Although these people were not research subjects, their online profiles were involved. Clearly, if ethnographic methods were used and researchers went out on dates with unsuspecting research participants, this would be a far more serious ethical concern. This leads to an important question: how can you do ethnographic research and collect accurate data, while participants are aware of your research? For further discussion of the ethical issues associated with online dating research projects, see Section 1.5.2.4.1. If a community has both a physical and a virtual component, both might be good candidates for ethnographic research. For instance, Ploderer, Howard, and Thomas (Ploderer et al., 2008) were interested in researching the community of bodybuilders, people who are passionate about staying fit, building muscle, and taking part in bodybuilding competitions. The researchers used ethnographic methods in both the physical community and the online community. They went to seven bodybuilding gyms to observe and also attended two bodybuilding competitions. In addition, the BodySpace social networking website has over 160,000 people interested in bodybuilding. The researchers created a profile and for 4 months, participated with and observed the members of the community and communicated with various community members (Ploderer et al., 2008). Psychology and security. 1 Introduction. The managing director is confident that he has taken all of the security measures that he needs to in order to protect his company’s cloud based data—his IT manager has tested the system, the software and hardware are the best that money can buy, and employees are given excellent training in data protection. On the day that a security breach is uncovered, he is perplexed and horrified, and he begins an investigation into why the breach occurred. Eventually, he discovers that one of his management team has used the same password for their company file access as they do for an online dating account. When the online dating service was hacked a few minutes beforehand, the infiltrators gained access to the password, and matched it to the employee. The managing director is confused—the employee training provided explicitly stated that the password for the company services should be unique, so why did this happen?

While technological devices and programs form the bulk of the defense mechanisms against malicious attacks and infiltrations, the human element in cloud security must also be factored into any protection strategy. The use of weak passwords and other aspects of poor security hygiene can dramatically reduce the efficacy of technological protective measures. While users may be aware of the best methods of ensuring increased security, they are not always inclined to follow these directions, particularly where they perceive the methods involved as being difficult, inconvenient, or ineffective, or if they feel that they do not have the skills required to implement the measures. This chapter examines how various theories and research in communication and psychology can help management to understand why users may not follow best practice in cloud security, and how they can encourage users to change such behaviors. The chapter describes theories such as Communication Privacy Management (CPM) Theory, Protection Motivation Theory, and Social Learning Theory, as well as various cognitive biases and distortions, particularly in relation to decision making. For each theory and concept, the applicability to cloud security behaviors is considered, illustrating how such phenomena may manifest in inappropriate security behaviors. The chapter continues with insights on how behaviors can be changed, based on the theories described. Specific approaches for the development of intervention strategies are proposed which may encourage staff and individual users to more actively engage in safer cloud security behaviors. The chapter concludes with suggestions for further reading regarding several of the theories and phenomena discussed. Virtual Myths. Threat Chains. An additional type of chain message goes beyond attempts to scare by explaining threats that will directly affect the recipient, their friends, computer system, or strangers if they do not follow the directions of the message and forward it on to others, continuing the trajectory of the message. These messages also indicate that the recipient’s email behaviors will be monitored to know whether the contents are forwarded and to whom. Though this threat is virtually impossible to follow up on, it is intended to spur the recipient to action. With the immense popularity and user participation in social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and others, the newer manifestations of threat chains often look very different, and the perpetuation demand by the attacker is contingent upon the proprietary communication methods particular to each social media platform. For example, on Facebook an attacker may demand that a victim recipient post the threat chain communication on his/her status “news feed,” causing the communication to be broadcasted to anyone reading the news feed. Further, using the “messages” feature of Facebook, the victim can perpetuate the chain through broadcasting private messages to his/her Facebook friends. This is perhaps best exemplified by the resurgence of the Bill Gates hoax described earlier in this chapter. The scam has resurfaced on Facebook in the last few years with individuals posting a photoshopped image of Bill Gates holding a piece of paper explaining that if people share and click through a link provided he will pay them $5000 (Fig. 2.8). Online: Social Media Threat Chains. Communication Channels Through Social Media Platforms. The myriad of social media platforms (to include online dating services and multiplayer online games) typically have both public and private communication channels to communicate with other users in the environment. Some of the more popular platforms and methods include: Indicators of Online Hoax and Chain Communications. Elements of Threat Chains. Caution statement/warning banner : The top of the message typically contains all capital letter fonts (“marquee effect”), conveying an attention-grabbing cautionary statement such as “Warning!”, “Read this!”, or “This is not a joke!” Transmission/perpetuation requirement : The recipient is admonished to continue the trajectory of the message by transmitting or broadcasting it to others via online communication. Instructions : The threat chain will often provide instructions or admonitions to the recipient that require him/her to conduct a further action, including or in addition to perpetuating the message. International usability testing. Set up a research plan. If you don’t have research to create your personas, you may be able to set up a research plan for this purpose. There are many ways to set up a research plan to gain insights into your target users, and your choice of the plan that works best for you will largely be dependent on budget and time. Perhaps your research is limited to what you can find on the Internet or in books. Or, with a bigger budget and more time, you can devise a research plan that entails not just secondary but also primary research. The following example outlines a plan for conducting a combination of secondary and primary research on dating patterns and the use of dating apps with a goal of gaining insights into a target international market for a dating app. The research was used to create personas that would represent users of current dating apps and those who are potential users of dating apps. The plan was divided into two phases: Literature review —locate and read relevant research articles and books that provide background on the specific country/culture and identify researchers to contact for interviews. Remote subject-matter interviews —conduct five in-depth interviews with identified subject matter experts from the literature review to gain deeper insights. Contextual inquiry —schedule 10 home visits to discover why target users make the decisions that they do about their dating processes, their feelings services, their preferences for one service over another, their pain points, success stories, and so forth. The goal of this research is to identify opportunities to meet users’ needs and address pain points. Focus groups —engage six to eight participants in three focus groups, in which they discuss their dating practices, online dating service experience (positive and negative), and preferences for one service over another. The following sidebar provides examples of the primary and secondary research applied to the creation of two Chinese personas for an international study of China’s Holiday Inn website. Creating Chinese personas for a study of China’s Holiday Inn website. The team added to this information by reading articles about China’s business and leisure travelers in US magazines and conducting interviews with US- and Chinese-located friends and acquaintances. The combined information became the basis for the following two personas: • Min He—a US-resident, Chinese-born mother and wife, with limited computer skills. Although she works part time to support her husband’s computer business, she uses the computer only for basic data entry associated with bookkeeping. She is a potential leisure traveler to China, since she wants to plan a family visit to China. Tai “Tony” Chen—a Chinese resident and young professional with strong computer skills who travels as part of his job and to visit his parents in another city. Tony likes to be seen as “cool,” so his choices in clothes, coffee, and where he stays when he travels are important to him. He especially likes Western brands. When he’s with his friends, he goes by his Western name, Tony, which he adopted for use when British owners in his company’s joint venture are in town. 10 Online Dating Advantages and Disadvantages. Share. Love knows no boundaries – this is what everyone has probably heard. Centuries ago, inter-cultural marriages were the prerogative of royals only. But nowadays, anybody is free to search for the love of his/her life overseas. The modern tech progress brings us an abundance of online communication means including online dating sites and even mobile applications that indeed lift all restrictions on your dating regime. No wonder that the proportion of international couples rapidly grows. So we suggest you take a look at five pros and five cons of online dating to become aware of what it may give you. Let’s start right now with the pluses. Online Dating Advantages. 1. Fast and convenient. This is apparently the first item we should outline. Some people still believe a widespread myth that online dating only works for those who fail to find a good partner in real life. Yet the reason why it is so popular is different: online dating merely saves you time and energy as you can meet someone special without leaving your room. In our view, this is extremely helpful in our busy times. 2. There is plenty of choices. Yes, online dating services give you access to an unrestricted number of candidates. Whether you are searching for love in the nearby area or dream about meeting a decent Slavic bride, these resources are capable of matching you to who you want. Another beneficial aspect of online dating is that you can chat to several matches simultaneously and choose the best one. 3. You can pick a partner of your dream in several steps. Major dating services automatically connect you to people whose level of compatibility with you is very high. Not only you can set filters and see potential partners of a certain age, appearance, or dating goals – there is a possibility to meet someone whose interests and live values are similar to yours. And this all can be done just in a couple of clicks!

4. It is fun anyway. The conventional idea of romance may seem too ordinary to many people so they make up their mind to open new horizons. Online dating not just provides you with sufficient information about attractive people you meet – it allows you to study foreign cultures and languages. If you don’t hesitate to make acquaintances on the Internet, some of these people will likely enrich your self-development. By all means, even unsuccessful relationships give us lots of valuable experience. 5. You can make whatever impression you want. Online dating might really work for people who feel insecure about their attractiveness, both outer and inner. You should basically work on your self-esteem in order to make it adequate but meeting people on the Internet often relieves you from the extra pressure in the beginning. Sometimes, it’s easier to approach a stunning single woman via clever messages than trying to woo her at the bar. So you know what the very basic advantages online dating can provide to you are. Yet there are minuses as well. Now, it’s time to switch to them now. Online Dating Disadvantages. 1. Setting your priorities right may be difficult. Having access to a big number of prospective daters is nice but on the other hand, it may be overly difficult to make the right choice. Many users run into extremes – they get attached to someone with no good reasons or vice verse practice polyamory. It is important to find the golden mean and set realistic expectations of what you are looking for. Don’t stick to one variant until you really feel the connection. 2. It is still like buying a pig in a poke. You never know what you will get in real life. You may marvel at stunning profile photos of your dates, have fun chatters with them – but it is still not enough to get an idea of who they are. Live video chats indeed help you clarify the things, however, in-person meetings is what your future couple needs. 3. You have to venture your time and effort. Online dating is capable of eating your free (and even working) time up. If you know there’s a risk for you to become an Internet addict, it is necessary to plan your communication out. On the other hand, it is quite difficult to impress representatives of the opposite sex just via your posts and photos as nothing works better than live talks. 4. Being in a long-distance relationship was never easy. Well, this topic is 100% worth creating a separate article. The distance between partners-to-be is probably the largest pitfall of online dating. We only hope you understand the seriousness and difficulty of this dating mode. There are many things to consider and work out if you’re gonna try it. 5. Not always online contacts are safe. Online frauds aren’t rare nowadays so you should always be careful on the Internet. Some people are sure all online dating sites are scams. In fact, this is false. But you should nevertheless control what personal information you share and read guides to protecting yourself (they are available on our site as well). Rules for Safe Online Dating. Nowadays, the Internet is full of scammers who have bad intentions and want to profit off you. Therefore, you should know a number of simple rules that you need to follow in order not to be deceived when looking for love on a dating site. Don't rush to pay. Dating sites and apps often make money from paid features. However, you can get by with the free version of a dating site. Moreover, most of the paid features are needed only by those people who use the application too often. Consider personal data protection. You should not register on a dating site using your main email account, and even more so link your profile to a Facebook page or Instagram account. Your profile page on a dating site should not be indexed by search engines. Don't follow links. In the best case, scammers will steal your password for the profile page, in the worst case, they will supply a virus dangerous for your computer or gadget. Select appropriate photos. Do not post photos that you use on other Internet resources. Google's image search feature can suddenly lead scammers to your social media profiles. Don't post too personal photos. Do not post too personal photos and videos on your profile page, and even more so do not send them to your interlocutors through private messages. It's not about violating personal boundaries, but about the likelihood of blackmail. Be vigilant. You should examine the profiles of potential chosen ones for conflicting or implausible information. Any discrepancy between the data and the questionnaire with reality should alert you. Use the site's messenger. You should not immediately give your interlocutor your email, nickname in Telegram, or phone number. It is easier to interrupt unwanted communication on a dating site than to block an interlocutor wherever they can only reach you. Don't be afraid to complain. If you receive insults or even threats from an interlocutor, this is a sure reason to complain about the profile page of this person to the site administration. Make your own decisions. Of course, the initiative is a good thing, but do not allow yourself to be pressured and do not put pressure on your interlocutor yourself. The decision to meet in real life should be mutual but not made under persistent requests and persuasion. Agree on a meeting place. Make an appointment only in a location known to you and be sure to tell your friends where and with whom you are going. It will not be superfluous to ask them about a "control" call to make sure everything is okay with you. Tips to get the best from online dating and find your love. Decide how you want to find candidates for dating. Some dating sites offer you matches selected by comparing profiles. This is the simplest method, although not very reliable since the selection is made by software algorithms as a result of cold calculation. Are you ready to spend money on dating? There are free sites for virtual dating on the network. But with all kinds of paid subscriptions with additional functions such as displaying a profile in top places, your chances of meeting a partner get higher. Be ready to reject and be rejected. Don't take the answer "No" too personally. After all, most likely, by refusing to communicate with you, your age, hair color, place of your residence doesn’t suit a person. They do not know you. The Masculinist #50: The Truth . • Subscribe, read back issues and the blog: themasculinist.com • Podcast: Apple, Google, YouTube • Live Interviews: YouTube, Facebook (audio only versions available by podcast on Apple). • If you unsubscribed to the digest and want back on, click here. The Move to Online Dating. There’s been a stupendous increase in the share of couples who meet online, along with an uptick with those meeting in bars. Every other way apart from in bars that couples meet has been losing share. This chart says it all (h/t @JSMilbank): First, we have to understand the facts of online dating. Because these sites are digital, they have hard data about user behavior. That lets us get an objective look at how men and women actually behave in the dating market in the real world. We have to know this information and be willing to accept it, because it’s absolutely a picture of reality. Get the top 2 most popular issues of the newsletter. Second, if you are a single man, you need to understand how you approach online dating. Online dating in effect represents the “globalization” of the dating market just as previously happened with the economy. And the results are similar, with extremely high inequality of outcomes. Online dating also skews heavily towards looks, which favors the very attractive. Realities of Human Behavior Revealed by Online Dating. One of the key pieces of data that’s been examined is what drives attraction on online dating sites. This can be done at the macro level or the micro level. For example, the way users rate others varies by race, according to multiple reports. OkCupid, for example, found that blacks and Asian men were penalized by users. (A recent book says the black women in particular are discriminated against). And at the micro level it’s also been discovered that having a cat in your photo makes heterosexuals be seen as less attractive, a 5% lower like rate for men and a 7% lower like rate for women. A photograph with a dog increases your like rate (20% for men and 3% for women). One of the keys is how attractiveness varies by age. Another previous study from OkCupid, as reported by the feminist web site Jezebel, showed that the age of the men that women find most attractive scales roughly linearly with the woman’s own age: A woman’s at her best when she’s in her very early twenties. Period. And really my plot doesn’t show that strongly enough. The four highest-rated female ages are 20, 21, 22, and 23 for every group of guys but one… Younger is better, and youngest is best of all, and if “over the hill” means the beginning of a person’s decline, a straight woman is over the hill as soon as she’s old enough to drink. But there are other ways to look at this. A researcher at the company that produces the statistical analysis software SAS looked at the distribution of ratings of attractiveness given out by men and women. Here is the distribution of how men rated women: As you can see, this resembles a bell curve, which is what we would expect. Most women are rated near average, with fewer at the two extremes. This does not necessarily determine whether men and women message each other however. OkCupid overlaid messaging rates on top of these same attractiveness distributions. Here’s a chart of the distribution of how men rated women and who they messaged: In short, men seem to shoot for the moon in terms of whom they message, whereas women rate men very harshly but message men on a sort of curve grading system. As the OkCupid blogger put it, “The average-looking woman has convinced herself that the vast majority of males aren’t good enough for her, but she then goes right out and messages them anyway.” Nevertheless, these dynamics translate into extreme inequality, especially for men. A Medium user did a statistical analysis of Tinder. His conclusion was that, if you are a man, “unless you are really hot you are probably better off not wasting your time on Tinder.” He showed that inequality of interest on Tinder is higher than income inequality in the United States. Here is one of his charts: As I stated previously the average female “likes” 12% of men on Tinder. This doesn't mean though that most males will get “liked” back by 12% of all the women they “like” on Tinder. This would only be the case if “likes” were equally distributed. In reality, the bottom 80% of men are fighting over the bottom 22% of women and the top 78% of women are fighting over the top 20% of men….A man of average attractiveness can only expect to be liked by slightly less than 1% of females (0.87%). This equates to 1 “like” for every 115 females. Aviv Goldgeier at Hinge found similar levels of inequality on that app. He calculated the inequality of likes using the Gini Coefficient, which is a common measure of income inequality in which 0 is perfect equality and 1 is perfect inequality. Here is what he said: As it pertains to incoming likes, straight females on Hinge show a Gini index of 0.376, and for straight males it’s 0.542. On a list of 149 countries’ Gini indices provided by the CIA World Factbook, this would place the female dating economy as 75th most unequal (average — think Western Europe) and the male dating economy as the 8th most unequal (kleptocracy, apartheid, perpetual civil war — think South Africa). Lastly, I’ll share a chart about how relative attractiveness changes over time. This is from an academic study reported on by the Atlantic. Researchers used Google’s page rank algorithm to rate the attractiveness of men and women on an undisclosed dating site in four cities. Here’s how relative attractiveness changes by age: I previously wrote about the “attractiveness curve” for men and women. Women are on average considered more attractive in their 20s (especially their early 20s). But around age 30 the script flips and men are on average considered more attractive, a situation that persists for the rest of their lives. This chart is that curve statistically demonstrated. If they were on the same chart, the male and female lines would cross about age 32. This has profound implications, obviously. It explains why men are apt to complain about difficulties in finding a woman while in their 20s, while you tend to hear similar complaints from older women, especially those ages 35+. Women are in a sense holding the cards when they are in their 20s, but, perhaps unfairly, if they don’t get married to a man before or soon after those lines cross, they can find themselves in real trouble when it comes to getting married. Again, all of these charts are based on actual behavior by real people on actual online sites and analyzed based on hard data downloaded from them. Implications of the Rise of Online Dating. I previously wrote about the neoliberalization of relationships (in Masc #21). Today, relationships are essentially formed in marketplaces. In the past, to the extent that there was a market, it was a marriage market, with dating serving as a funnel into it. Now there are multiple marketplaces: a sexual marketplace, a dating marketplace, and a marriage marketplace. Unlike in the past people can now choose relationships free hookups, casual dating, long term relationships, or marriage. And people can jump from one marketplace to another anytime they want (though our society still has social rules against married people cheating without getting a divorce first). Online dating represents a true marketplace form. Everyone in the online dating market is simultaneously a product and a potential buyer. And we see from the data above how that sorts out in terms of how that marketplace functions. First, online dating is functionally equivalent to globalization in trade. Pre-globalization, most countries traded internally. Goods and services consumed domestically were typically produced domestically. Obviously there was some international trade, but it was small relative to the whole, and cumbersome in many cases. With global trade deals like the Uruguay Round of trade talks (which created the WTO), improved global logistics, global broadband and the internet, industrialization in places like China and elsewhere, we now have a world of much more broad-based global competition. Today a domestic manufacturer competes not just against other domestic manufacturers, but with manufacturers all over the globe. What this did in many cases was to merge what used to be independent national or local hierarchies into a single global hierarchy. This meant major change in who was a winner and who was a loser. The top global competitors became stupendously successful. Many former national or local champions found themselves in newfound competition with better or much, much cheaper competitors and took a big hit. Online dating acts in a similar manner. It used to be that men and women met each other within various physical spaces and social circles in the real world: school, work, church, family friendship circles, neighborhoods, etc. You could certainly meet someone outside of that, even intentionally such as by looking at old school print personal ads. But the market you were in was much more limited. Because every school, neighborhood, church, etc. was in essence its own market, that meant they each had their own local marketplace winners. And people would sort of match up within that based on their relative value in the market. But with online dating, all those old local relationships markets have been merged. It’s not true globalization because most people don’t want to date someone on the other side of the world or the country. But in most places it’s certainly the metropolitanization of dating. Here in Indianapolis, for example, online dating means you have access to all the singles on those sites in a region of over two million people. So in an online dating world, you are no longer just in competition with people in your social circles. You are in competition with everyone in your city or region. It may be true that your pool of prospects is also bigger. But the dynamics of these global type markets have in practice tended to produce more extremes of winners and losers. Remember the stats I posted above from sites like Tinder and Hinge showing extreme “income inequality” in the online dating market. High levels of inequality for men is a basic feature of how online dating functions. Secondly, online dating skews very strongly towards looks as an initial screening criterion. This is particularly true on swipe apps like Tinder. Nobody has time to wade through all the singles listings in their area, and that tends to promote heavy filtering. And after setting filters like age, etc., the easiest and quickest thing to filter on is looks. Apps like Bumble even severely restrict the amount of text you are allowed to put in your profile. As it happens, men’s attraction to women is heavily based on looks. But women’s attraction to men is based on a broader set of criteria: power and status, confidence and charisma, looks and style, and resources like money. In fact, looks are often not the dominant driver of attraction. So if you are a very good looking guy, online dating may work in your favor, because you are going to draw a lot of engagement. But if your biggest strengths are in other areas, if you are not in the top 10-20% of guys in looks, you are going to be at a disadvantage in online dating. Lastly, on traditional online dating platforms (other than Bumble), women are besieged with responses. Many of these are spammy or otherwise low quality. I’m sure some border on or actually are harassment. But even so, the medium is the message: the sheer quantity of responses is sending a signal to the person receiving them that she is very attractive and desirable. Think about how it would affect you. What would you think if you created an online dating profile and immediately dozens of people started emailing you?

Even if you weren’t interested in any of the people, the quantity at some level is very gratifying. As an infamous person once said, “Quantity has a quality all its own.” This creates two challenges for you as a man. The first is being able to cut through all the noise and get noticed among all the other messages she’s getting. The second is having her judge you versus an assessment of her own attractiveness that’s potentially artificially boosted by the online dating system itself and the immense amount of inbound attention it generates for her. In my view, these three factors – the globalization effect, the looks-skewed environment, and the dynamics around responses to women – make online dating an unfavorable environment for most men, especially for those outside the top 10-20% in looks. Now, online dating has worked for lots of people. I know men who met their wife via online dating, which is great. I don’t look down on anyone who uses it. I view it strictly as a tool. The question is whether it’s an effective tool. If you think it’s a good tool for you, then by all means use it. A reader said that for him, online dating was a “force multiplier” that let him find more potential matches than he otherwise would have been able to. He successfully got maried via online dating. For me, I made the decision to stay completely off online dating platforms. Well, it’s to go back to the physical spaces and social communities of real life, to more localized markets. There’s no substitute for walking up to a woman you are interested in and asking her on a date. Yes, there’s a risk of rejection. Yes, there’s a risk she might say you made “unwanted advances.” But as a man, if you don’t have the confidence to face that kind of risk, you have bigger problem than getting dates. And again, the medium is the message. The mere fact that she sees you have the confidence to interact in the real world is powerful. And let’s be honest, if you struggle with women in the real world, going online is not likely to be the solution. At some point she’s actually going to meet you in person, after all. In the real world, it’s also possible to operate in situations that put your best foot forward with women. I’ll give you an example from my own life. I had dated my wife in Indianapolis shortly before moving to NYC. I was not in a position to be in a serious relationship at that time, so I broke things off when I moved. When I was in a position to be in a serious relationship, I decided to reengage with her. I did it on a trip back to Indiana when I was scheduled to be the keynote speaker at a local chamber of commerce annual luncheon. I invited her to attend it and see my talk. Remember, women are interested in status, confidence, etc. When I got up on the stage as the main event speaker, that’s status and she saw it. She saw it when I confidently, competently, and with mastery of my subject gave a 30-minute keynote presentation in front of hundreds of people. This environment, unlike online dating, maximized my best assets as a man. There’s no way to convey the visceral reality of seeing me speak in front of a sizable crowd into an online dating profile or even a video of the event. As it happens, I had good reason to believe she’d be interested anyway, but every little bit helps. She sold her house, moved to New York, and we were married four months later. The key is that you want to be in a local relationship marketplace (physical spaces and actual social circles) rather than the global marketplace of online dating. And you want to find those local places and social circles where your best attributes shine through and where you can become one of the top men there. However, if you do decide to use online dating, you need to find ways to operate that take account of all the dynamics I laid out in this newsletter. Mortification of Sin. For those of who have not yet done so, you should pick up a copy of my modern English translation John Owen’s Puritan classic The Mortification of Sin (paperback, kindle, e-pub). Owen’s book has been widely touted by bigname pastors but is less widely read than it should be because it’s written in 17th century English that’s very difficult to understand. I translated and adapted the text into very readable modern English. As one reviewer put it, “I attempted Owen’s classic book years ago but did not complete it. The old English language and reading was burdensome. Aaron Renn has made Romans 8:13 come alive with his gift of clarity. He took a substantial, dense classic from John Owens and made it understandable.” Bookshelf: Exit, Voice, and Loyalty. People keep asking me to put together a recommended book list. And while I don’t have a list put together, I will periodically share books that I’ve enjoyed and benefitted from. I’ll focus on those that are easy to read and of reasonable length. One is Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States by Albert O. Hirschman. This is one of the most famous books about the choices facing people unhappy with institutions they are involved with, and what the implications of those choices are. The two basic options are Exit – to leave, often switching to a new institution. And Voice – to complain, lobby, or otherwise try to prompt the institution to reform. (Loyalty refers to how these options are modified in the presence of loyalty to institutions). The first chapter is a bit dull, but otherwise the book is brimming with insight and is eminently quotable. See the Coda below and Masc #24. In an age of institutional decay, this book is well worth reading. If you like it and would like to check out other books by Hirschman, try The Rhetoric of Reaction, which is about the ways conservatives frame their arguments. Or pick up The Passions and the Interests, which traces the intellectual history of how human desires (passions) went from being seen as a source of evil to being seen as good after being recapitulated as “interests” (most notably in the form of Adam Smith’s invisible hand). The traditional American idea of success confirms the hold which exit has had on the national imagination. ccess – or what amounts to the same thing, upward social mobility – has long been conceived in terms of evolutionary individualism. The successful individual who starts out at a low rung of the social ladder, necessarily leaves his own group behind as he rises, he “passes” into, or is “accepted” by, the next higher group. He takes his immediate family along, but hardly anyone else. ccess is in fact symbolized and consecrated by a succession of physical moves out of the poorer quarters in which he was brought up into ever better neighborhoods. He may later finance some charitable activities designed to succor the poor or the deserving of the group and neighborhood to which he once belonged. But if an entire ethnic or religious minority group acquires a higher social status, this occurs essentially as the cumulative result of numerous, individual, uncoordinated success stories and physical moves of this kind rather than because of concentrated group efforts. Writing An Online Dating Essay. Before you start thinking of anything. The topic of dating has caused discussions throughout the past few decades. The forms of dating have been changing from year to year, and more possibilities were opened for the people to meet their new partners. And the biggest steps were taken in the past decade when we discovered that we could use our new friend, the Web, to meet people. All of that started with the social media. And then, the dating websites appeared. They brought a change in how we see relationships in the modern world. Online dating has influenced our society a lot. This issue has been discussed many times, but not everything has been covered yet. This is an opportunity for you to make a change by writing your essay. There are many essay ideas on online dating you can pick from — so make your decision wisely. Why choose online dating for an essay topic is not something that requires a lot of thoughts — writing will help others to know more about it and learn how to build a successful relationship not only online, but also in the real world. So go ahead and do it!

But first, it is crucial to think of something less important, as many are going to say, and these are (sentence reduction) the online dating essay titles. Many people consider this part of the text to be a useless waste of time, but actually, the title is something that people are looking at before the reading (sentence reduction). And if your text is difficult to read, then it is almost impossible to make a new reader interested in the essay you are writing. Therefore, in most of the cases, it is challenging to pay a lot of attention to the details, and the title is one of the most important ones. So, how to pick a good title for online dating essay?

There are many different factors that you are going to look at when writing your essay , but the main one is the type of text. Yes, it might not seem like an aspect that you should care about, but generally, it is something that determines most of the ideas in your text. Therefore, it is crucial to pay attention to it and think of every step that you take choosing the type. So, what are the main ways of writing this type of text? First of all, it is important to memorize that if the text is not scientific, it needs to have a short title. We have all seen a text which is simply impossible to start reading just because of its boring name. Even though the name does not always show what the story goes about, people are still going to judge the text by the title. Only after that, they are going to start reading your online dating essay outline. Also, you have to make sure that you are keeping an eye on the content of your title. Yes, that is a thing; you have to look at the title to be on the same topic as the next lines of text that you are going to write. There are some other things about the titles of the simple essay, but they are not that important. Instead, it is vital to explain how the research and other scientific papers are different from the regular texts. The research paper on online dating will have to keep a different line, but you are going to see that the ways of creating these two title types are pretty much the same. However, we are going to start with one thing that makes these two types different and the aspect that makes the students suffer from the low assessment of their texts. The fact is that the scientific texts need to have enough information in them. Indeed, they should not be as long as your text, but at the same time, you will have to make sure that you include the point of your writing in the title. That will allow the reader of your dating essay to get a brief look at what they are going to find out from the text. This part is essential, but many authors still do not pay enough attention to it. Other things to care about before writing. It seems like there are so many things to think of before writing. However, it is so important to do all of these steps before you are going to jump into text creation. And there are some other things that you will have to take care of before you start. It is essential to talk about the fact of being interrupted from the text during its writing. The starters always make such mistake. As you already should know, the more you get stopped while writing, the more mistakes you might make. In the best of the online dating essay examples, you will never find a place where the author completely changed the topic of the conversation, and the reason for that is the fact that they are doing everything as they cannot leave their workplace while writing the text. It might be difficult to understand, so it is important to show an example of how to make it easier for yourself. Many writers drink a hot drink during the text writing. Some of them drink soda and water. And getting a drink will surely cost you more than those two minutes of going to the kitchen. Most likely, you are going to forget the topic that you were discussing in one of your online dating essays, and in some of the cases, it will take almost half an hour to start writing at the pace you were doing this before the pause. And the other thing that you are going to need for your text is the information. This is vital when writing an essay that requires you to have something educational or at the texts where you don’t have to express your point of view. Usually, those texts are scientific, and in some cases, it will be almost impossible to find the info on the topic you are writing about, but you have to write in such a way which allows replacing your thoughts. For example, in an online dating argumentative essay you need many arguments that will go for or against the topic. And just like in the previous point, it is important to think of all of this before you go into the actual thinking process. Of course, you think that you will be able to find some help online, and that will help you for sure. Indeed, you are even going to find proper info for your texts. But at the same time, you can think of the things way ahead of time. That is going to help you a lot because you will not lose your momentum, and it also allows you not to pause and create a beautiful essay on online dating. At the end of this advice, it is important to remind that it is best to tell your relatives or roommates not to disturb you at certain periods of time. Also, it has been a serious problem for some of the new writers. Apart from that, there are the social network issues. To make sure that you do not find yourself texting at the middle of the writing, you have to put away your phone. And if you like music, it sometimes would be great to have some cool vibes at the background of your working process. That can help the writer get concentrated easily. Just like those who are writing a research paper on online dating are quite good at looking for the info because they do it every day since they started working. But do not panic, it just seems to be so difficult. So here are some of the information that you will be able to use in your texts. But just before we start, it is important to remind that throughout the text you will need many facts and numbers, so the best solution is to do a small research on your own to make sure that you have enough of that info for your online dating essay conclusion. Here are some nice facts that you can use in your text. Nearly one-third of those who have used the online dating sites have never actually gone on a date in real life. Over a half of Americans that are in a relationship right now have admitted to finding their pair online. About a quarter of the users of the dating sites have asked somebody to help them with their site profile. About 90% of those using the dating sites are lying in their profiles. 40% of Americans use the dating websites. According to eHarmony, online dating users are 52.4% men and 47.6% women. How to write an introduction for online dating research paper. First of all, find out who is your audience. First few sentences of your text should get your readers interested in it. You have to know who your readers are, what their age and level of education might be. Think about who might be interested in the main topic of your essay and write for them. This way you will make the readers really interested from the first few words. The first few sentences of an essay are meant for getting your readers involved in the subject you are writing about. There are a few ways to do that: Surprise your readers. Everybody knows how some weird and shocking facts affect us even if we were not so interested in the main subject of an essay. When people learn something fun or interesting they did not know before, it will be curious to find out what you have prepared for them next. If you want your hook to work, you need to make sure that it has an effect you want on your readers. Try telling your friends and family a fact you want to include when you write an online dating essay introduction. If they are really shocked or surprised, then go ahead and use it without hesitations. Remember not to use facts that will later serve as evidence to support your main point. Use something later; it may also be a fact that will get your readers hooked. Some facts that tell your readers why the topic is important are going to be fine too. You can also get your readers involved by making an emotional appeal, especially if you are writing an essay for scholarship on a social issue. Describe your own story or a story you have heard from somebody, but this story has to be connected to the main subject. For example, if you are writing a persuasive essay on online dating, think of a story when somebody has met love of their lives online and how it made their lives better. If you don’t have any friends or relatives that have such a story, look for some online, don’t forget to give a credit to the author. Ask your readers any question, and they will do their little research to find out the answer. You can also ask your audience a question and answer in conclusion, so more readers will be willing to read till the end of your essay, curious to find out what the truth is. Just keep in mind that if the prompt of your research paper was a question, you would not ask it again in the introduction, try to think of something original instead. For instance, if you are writing why online dating is bad essay, don’t just ask your readers why they think that online dating is terrible. Instead of doing so, ask them what they think about a percentage of people that misinterpret their image on online dating websites and which consequences does this behavior have. Your question should be specific, and you should have an answer for it that you could give in the end of an essay. Another way to get your readers interested right from the beginning is to tell a relevant anecdote or a funny example from life. This method is great if you are writing an essay about any personal or social issues since scientific essay requires a specific tone. While you have been looking for information for your research paper, you probably have found something that sounds cool but did not work out for the main body of the essay. For example, if you are writing an essay , look for some anecdotes that will be both funny and appropriate. If you have an amusing story to share, don’t hesitate — this will make your readers smile, so they will be willing to continue reading. After you are done with creating a great hook for your readers, you can move on to the following step. That is making a connection between your trick and the main topic. Your readers need to know what was all of that about, and that is when you should give a link to a topic you are going to talk. Just start with a smooth transition that will fit your text (search online for a list of transitional words) and give your readers a larger picture. Then, provide the background information. Even though the introduction should not be too specific, it is best to provide some facts to your readers for a better understanding of the main points you are about to make. rmation in the introduction depends on the type of your paper. For instance, if you are writing an argumentative essay, explain both sides of an argument — but make sure to be neutral. Consider this when writing a thesis statement for argumentative essay – an argumentative essay should not take only one side and it has to include different views on a topic. You can start moving from general to specific as soon as you are finished with previous steps. While describing the context of your thesis statement, try to narrow down each sentence, making them more specific. This will help you to lead a reader from an opening sentence to the thesis statement. Then you can start writing your thesis — follow the article to find out how to do that. So, you have your trick, and you have a context for a thesis statement. Don’t use language that will make you sound uncertain. Phrases like “I will attempt to. ” or “I may not be an expert” will only harm your essay. The online dating essay thesis of your essay should be specific, and it is meant to help you discuss with your readers the main points of an essay. To write a good thesis statement, you need to understand the meaning of it. A thesis statement is usually included at the end of the first paragraph, but feel free to change a place for it if you feel like you’ve got a better idea. The goal of this statement is to give a summary of the main topic of an essay and your viewpoint. Thesis statement sentence gives your essay a direction, so all of the additional information has to be added either before the thesis statement or after. Provide your readers with a piece of basic information about how you are going to support your main argument. Usually, it won’t take more than one sentence. If you have an outline for an essay, it should be the sentence that will present the main subject of each of the body paragraphs. Don’t just list all of the supporting points, summarize them in your own words. For instance, if you are writing a comparison essay on online and traditional dating, briefly list 3-4 main things why both types of dating might be suitable for somebody. In the body of an essay, you will talk more about the reasons why online and traditional dating might be good or bad. Now you can move to the main body of an essay. Most of the time you start it just straight after the introduction. But in some cases, you might have to write a short additional sentence that serves as the transitive one. To understand if you need an additional sentence, try to read your introduction out loud a few times. If it does not sound natural to you, consider adding another sentence. Also, you can ask your friends or family to read your essay. They will tell how it sounds and give advice how to make it better. Write your introduction, not in the beginning, but after you have finished writing the whole essay. The reason for it is simple — during the process of writing an essay, you might get some new ideas about what you should include in the introduction. If you wrote your introduction first, revise it from time to time to see if it still corresponds to the essay. Delete anything unnecessary, even if it sounded good while you were writing it. Another thing. Make sure that you keep your essay introduction short. It should be around 100-200 words for an essay of 1000 words or 5-10% of the length of the essay. And that’s it. Now we can move to the next topic we need to cover. What age is appropriate for dating essay. This topic is a pretty interesting one, as it is not discussed too often. Therefore, it is crucial to look at it not just for the text, but also to know what to answer this question when it is asked in real life. And the fact is that there is no specific age when one should start dating or start thinking about the relationships. But once again, there is a different way to escape the situation. And to do so, we will need to look at the situation from a different perspective. And it will be a whole contrasting situation than with a type of text, like the risks of online dating essay. This case requires us to look at the things from the various perspectives. That means that we are not even going to look at the age as the main criteria. Instead, our primary focus will be how a person is spending their time and so on. So, to make this clearer, it is essential to show some examples. By the way, it will be great to use such example in your online dating vs traditional dating essay as this will be a great way to show how these two types of relationship are similar and at the same time different. So, we are going to take an example of an average teenager who likes somebody. Well, it does not depend on the age whether the teen will ask that person on a date. It is up to the situation to decide whether it is a suitable time for the person to start dating. However, with such thing as a dating website, it gets way trickier. First of all, it is important to say that in many cases people have no idea what those sites are because they are fine with the normal dating. And that is also due to texts like dangers of the internet essay. Essays like this are quite often listing the dating sites as one of the most dangerous places on the Web. They have many various reasons to say so, like the fact that many people who are willing to harm others are on such websites, or also the fact that it is not always true what you see on a profile. Therefore, nobody has to blame such texts that they are not being objective. But at the same time, they are missing the other point of view. For some, such type of dating is the only one that is affordable. Under ‘affordable’ it is meant that they have no way that they can meet somebody in real life regularly at all or due to certain circumstances at that moment. And that is a thing to add to your cons of online dating essay that we are going to talk about later. There are many people who are working day shifts meaning that they will not be able to meet regularly because they have a lot of work to do. Therefore, the dating websites are their only ways to meet somebody with the same situation in their life, and that will be how they would suit each other. Therefore, coming back to the topic of the appropriate age, there would be no doubt that it is up to the situation to decide at what age to start dating in real life, but there have to be some limits when talking about the Web dating. This would be something to talk about in typical disadvantages of online dating essay which we are also going to cover later on in this article. And it is actually not that easy to define at what age one should start using a dating website. But in most of the cases, it is not the best idea to go there unless you are at least 20 years. The reason for that is the fact that the younger people are often too pessimistic about their relationships, so they look for some exotic ways to find a partner. Usually, students are finding their future partners at the places that both of them like. This would be great to add in an online dating research paper outline. In most of the cases, those are going to be some kind of a meetups where people with the same hobbies and interests gather. And you just need to find the actual interests that you have and go ahead and visit the meetings. If you like reading, there will be no greater way to find somebody than a library or a book club. Moreover, you might be able to find good friends and new interests there. In the case of music lovers, those might be the concerts and so on. Just do not be shy and you will see that you need no dating sites to stay happy and to find people that you might like. And to make everything even more interesting, it is the time to start talking about the pros and cons of online dating, so let us move to the next topic of the discussion. Pros and cons of online dating essay. Just like in many cases, it is easier to start with the flip side of the coin. And to start it off, it is crucial to remind about one thing that was said previously in this text. That is the fact that not all of the people on such websites are up to the good things. You will not be surprised to find out that the better person looks, the more possibility is that they are going to trick you. And this brings us to the second problem of such websites. Do not forget to include both of them in your negative effects of online dating essay! The second problem of the dating sites is the fact that not all of the people want to harm you, but they surely want to trick you. This is the time to use some of statistics and tell the reader some interesting numbers. To successfully start with this, it is going to be said that about 90% of people lie in their dating sites profiles. Therefore, if somebody looks too nice to be true, it is probably so. Therefore, make sure that you check everything and communicate about everything before you plan to meet in real life. And that is just like in any dangers of online dating essay. When writing the middle part, it is essential to give your readers some time to rest. It is crucial for them to see how many good sides and how many terrible sides the online dating has. So, do not be lazy and spend some time looking for the information to include in this transitional paragraph. Those might be some interesting stories or facts. Also, with the rise of technology, you are going to be able to find some interesting infographics or pictures illustrating the words you have said previously. But do not get too deep into the details. Remember, you still need to write your advantages of online dating essay. And it is the time to continue talking about this topic. And before the start, it is once again important to repeat the things said previously. So, let us finish this difficult part of the text!

When writing about the advantages of online dating, you have to remember that you should keep yourself away from it a little. That means that you do not want to get so much into details that you will be almost advertising those sites. But at the same time do not forget that you want to be objective on the topic you are writing about. It would be fair to remind that there are people that have no possibilities to meet in person right away due to personal factors. For example, there may be people who are working late. This is something to include in your rise of online dating essay, as this reason is one of the most significant factors of the growth of such websites. And a factor that you have never seen would be quite weird for you, but that is the truth for some. That is the fact that people are training to talk with others using dating websites. That sounds like nonsense, but that is the sad truth for some. Due to the lack of communication with people because of various reasons, they are trying to learn this new skill using the dating websites. This would be an interesting topic to cover in the communication in online dating research paper. After you are done with the main part, it is crucial to give your reader some time to think about everything. Therefore, make sure that you make another transitional part in your text to let your reader rest from all of the info that you gave them throughout the text. This is also where you are going to need your information that you have stored previously, before the beginning of the text. And after we are done with the online dating essay tips, it is time to get to the analysis of everything that we have learned. The conclusion of an online dating essay. This will be a short paragraph with various reasons to go into it, but the main reason is just one. It is impossible to tell everything about the last paragraph of the text. You will be surprised, but there can even be no actual list of things that you will need to include in your conclusion. The last paragraph can also depend on the mood of the author, as it might be an optimistic one or the one that will tell only the bad things. Yes, that is way more than thinking of the online dating topics for essay. So, there are some things that you still are going to need to know about this part of the text. And the main one is the fact that there should be no new information in this paragraph. Everything that you wanted to say must stay in the main paragraph, but in the conclusion you should start thinking about everything that you have stated before. And this might get quite tricky for some people, especially at the beginning. Think of conclusion as of something like a what do you think essay. That is a part where you will need to express your personal opinion on the things going on in the text. But keep in mind that this might be different depending on the genre of the text. For example, in a research paper, it will be quite difficult to make people know about what you think because you are not allowed to tell about your thoughts in the scientific texts. But if you are writing something for a magazine or at school, like the effects of online dating essay, it will be crucial to include some thoughts on what is going on with the topic. After you are done with the writing, it is quite reasonable to check everything in the text. You will need to see if the text fits the good descriptive essay topic that is given and whether it follows the same genre throughout the whole essay. This tip will save you in a difficult situation like the one where you have to write some text that is pretty difficult, for example, the analytical essay on online dating or any other scientific type of writing. By the way, that is not the only way to improve the quality of your writing. What you can do is add some more words to make the text look nice. It would be great to think of any famous people who have spoken of the topic of your text. Those might be all types of people, but the closer they are to the field of your writing, the more your text is going to benefit from those words. Therefore, make sure that you check for all the possible quotes that you have ever met. Those quotes and all types of pictures and all of the stuff that you have been preparing would be an excellent addition to the transitional parts of the text. Reread them and make sure that they are the words that make people relax, not feel even more confused. Therefore, it is important to check if your text readability is at a high level. You can give it to your friends to check out and do not take any critics badly. They might be the ones to show you mistakes that might cost you the job or the grade. In the end, it would be great to check whether you need to change any words. That is a thing for some people, who do not like making their texts too big. In order to get rid of the repetitive stuff you can simply change some of the sentences and the words with other ones that are close by meaning but look well or sound like they are scientific. This trick is great to remember as it might save you a lot of work in the future when working on the other texts.

about online dating