Online Dating

Will I ever meet my soulmate? This question strikes in the mind of every human. Many people anticipated to find the right one or soulmate. The peoples' urge to find the right soul mate within a short period of time never allows that person to realize the amount of time he is spending on the dating sites. Looking at some well-chosen photographs displayed on a person's profile and trying to understand them through their cool looking captions that they probably copied from somewhere else takes a lot of time. One estimate suggests that users spend an average of 22 minutes each time they visit an online dating site (Finkel et al.). With the hope of forming romantic relationships, the person goes on online dating sites which offers access to almost two billion potential partners, but only that person knows the satisfaction of finding someone like his/ her thoughts.

Online dating is different from conventional dating. Conventional dating allows face-to-face communication with potential partners. Online dating, on the other hand, allows prescreening possible potential partners based on their height, weight, and age. Online dating has radically altered the field of dating since it started 15 to 20 years ago. These sites use a series of various algorithms to match people based on the basic questions of height, weight, and age. In order to find the best potential partners Tyler said, he is ready to lie about his physical appearances and his beliefs. According to the current research conducted by Pew Research Center, about 15% of all Americans have used some form of online dating sites, which was 11% at the beginning of the year (Hailey Online Dating). People will often point out their loneliness to be the main reasons for online dating. However, research shows that even committed people are involved in various sites of online dating. The wish of people to find a better match in an easier and efficient way i.e. through one click and so on eventually increases the number of people involved in online dating.

Love was more often considered as something that cannot be understood scientifically. However, psychological researchers Hatfield and Berscheid proved to many researchers that the scientific and psychological study of love is indeed possible (Psychology of Love). Online dating has radically altered the field of dating since its beginning 15 to 20 years ago. Online dating has grown into a billion dollars industry. These online dating apps are spending a lot of money to attract people. According to Karin Sternberg, about 80 percent of online daters reported inaccurate information. Sternberg points out that most of the time men overstate their height and women report a weight that is less than their true weight (Psychology of Love). But, why do people spend more than five hours a week on online dating even when they know most of the information provided in the profile of the potential partner might be inaccurate? The desire to get involved in physical or online dating is based on the reward system. When people are involved in the activities like viewing a picture of a romantic partner, neurons in the reward system release chemicals in the brain which reduces the pain (Younger et al. Viewing Pictures). In a scientific study conducted by Younger and his friends, between the individuals who performed tasks under moderate and high thermal pain, subjects were placed under fMRI. Then, half of the individuals were shown the picture of their romantic partner whereas the other half were asked to perform the distraction tasks. The conclusion was based on increased or decreased brain activity. Their findings revealed that the partner and the distraction tasks both reduced the pain. However, the people who were shown the picture of their romantic partner revealed higher brain activity in the caudate head, nucleus accumbens, lateral orbital cortex, amygdala, and dorsal prefrontal cortex (Younger et al. Viewing Pictures). However, no differences were found between the group of people using tinder or any other online dating agencies. According to Tsukamaya, more than 27 percent of young adults are involved in some kind of online dating sites where the most popular was Tinder and tinder-like dating sites. He found out that both adult males and females were involved in various kind of dating sites. The involvement on the dating sites is based on the reward system of the brain and the selection of potential partners is based on various attribution of a person. However, men are more likely than women to use dating sites to find casual sex partners. Whereas, women are far more likely to be afraid of meeting people online (Tsukamaya Online Dating).

Online dating offers a large pool of potential dates. Online dating sites, such as tinder, are globally increasing their business because this site is getting popular even in developing nations like India. These dating sites allow a person to make their account based on basic questions of height, weight, age, hobbies, attitudes and so on. Furthermore, sites also ask people what characteristics they desire in men and women. Besides, one can also upload their picture on the dating sites. Uploading a picture is not mandatory, but it is found that the profiles with pictures and cool captions are most visited ( Psychology of Love).

Online dating sites offer access, communication, and matching. Unlike conventional dating, online dating increases the opportunities to meet potential partners by minimizing the threatening condition for initiating relationships (Finkel et al. 48). Online dating provides access to partners overall behavior and physical appearances. Online dating also allows easy withdraw from considering a relationship with someone because there are millions of people to choose from.

However, long-term use of computer-mediated communication might actually hurt people's romantic prospects, while meeting with them face-to-face (Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality). It is true that online dating has expanded the opportunities for singles to find their potential partner. However, people not only use online dating sites to find a potential partner, but also to spend their spare time. According to a survey taken by Hitsch and his friends more than 20 percent of the people mentioned that they use online dating just because they were curious and the people who seek serious long-term relationships were, only 4 percent of the total people.

Although online dating sites use a series of various algorithms to match people, based on basic questions of height, weight, age, and interests, they are in a poor position to determine how the two partners will grow and mature over time and what will be their response to certain circumstances. According to a survey conducted by Tsukamaya, about 60 percent of people said that online dating is an easier and convenient way to find potential partners than the old conventional dating. However, 40 percent still think online dating is dangerous (Tsukamaya Online Dating).

There is still stigma and stereotypes related to meeting people online. People tend to stereotypically judge other people on dating sites based on their physical structures and beliefs. So, people tend to misinterpret their physical appearances in order to look good. According to a study conducted by two psychologists, Houran, James, and Rense Lange almost 80 percent of users misinterpreted their physical appearances on the dating sites (James and Rense Expectations). Misinterpretation of information is the minor issue in the field of online dating because hacking has been one of the greatest issue in the dating industry since the time it started to gain much popularity. Everyon's been hacked, it's whether it has been publicized or not. I think that's the standard now; says David Evans, a Vermont-based industry consultant and analyst behind the trade blog online dating insider (The Globe and The Mail). According to him people these days not only use online dating sites to find a potential partner but, some of them use these sites to scam people for money and to abuse them physically. According to the survey conducted by Whitty and Buchanan, about 0.65 percent of online users have been scammed daily. They further elaborated that over the entire total population of Great Britain, approximately more than 230,000 people have fallen in the prey of scammers (Psychology of Love). The safety issues of online dating sites are still under the question of many people because the dating industry is one of the most targeted by cybercriminals (Loriggio The Globe and The Mail). Although online dating is considered a common place to meet someone extreme precautions should be made if the potential partner who is not familiar ask for money or any other personal information. Conversely, Online dating can be studied, and various strategies of online dating sites can be compared. The lack of realization among people that online dating sites are running their business rather than focusing to find a scam free potential partners for the users can easily worsen the fate of relationships.

In conclusion, without having actual knowledge about the person with whom we are talking to, it is nearly impossible to find out the safe and the right soul mate. Despite, the various security approaches for limiting the possible hazards caused by unsafe online dating, this area of inquiry is still in the infancy stage. People should realize that we cannot possibly learn a lot about someone in 150 words based on his/ her profile. Most of the time, the information presented might be self-biased because the person would probably want to look smart and wise through his words. Online dating has changed the field of dating in both positive and negative ways. Online dating has tremendously increased some positive romantic relationships by allowing a recommendation for singles seeking for potential partners. However, it is also equally responsible for the increase in the number of sexual predators. The task to find the potential partners through online dating won't be easy and the effort to find one will be costly and mainly time-consuming. Also, you can never trust the credibility of the information and pictures provided on those dating sites. Online dating or internet would be beneficial only if we will use it as the foundation for building the trust and establishing real-world relationships, rather than the construction of fantasy selves and fake relationships. Although, we may find online dating efficient and modern to find the right soul mate,it should also be realized that dating that may be either conventional or online should be approached on a personal level.