Introduction
Nowadays, modern technologies are spreading at a great rate around the world. The services that provide communication are the most popular. Twenty five years ago people had no idea how to contact a person living on the other side of the globe in the most rapid, cheap and convenient way.
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However, do communication technologies of the 21st century bring about only positive changes? Today I will tell you about the dangers, which can be brought by online communication. According to the online dating statistics provided by the web resource statisticbrain.com, there are 40 million people in the US who are registered on the various sites of online dating. Taking into account that a total population of the U.S. is more than 315 million people, it can be summed up that a big number of them try online dating.
Why do people prefer distance, virtual and not always true communication to real relationships? First, I will tell you more about the popularity of online dating all around the globe. Then we will discuss some of its advantages and disadvantages. Finally, I will tell you why online dating can be dangerous.
Body
The Internet dating dates back to the early 1990s, when the Internet became not only a means of sharing information, but a real tool of communication. At that time, the communication between people through the Internet looked like communication between the pen pals of the previous century, because the users could only send simple text messages to each other. Later on, there appeared an ability to use pictures and other visual effects.
According to one of the popular news sites, such improvements made online dating more mainstream. The first typical sites were friendfinder.com and match.com. All the similar sites that appeared later just copied the ideas of the first two.
However, online dating of that time was still a prerogative of lonely, unconfident and sometimes even foolish people. This is because people did not really understand how little security those sites provided in terms of faithful representation, namely photos and profiles of the users.
Actually, online dating became even more popular when the Internet became a part of people's everyday life. In the mid-1990s, an average person did not have a connection to the Internet and ability to freely communicate with others through the World Wide Web. However, in course of time, people got used to keep in touch with their friends and family through the Internet. Under such circumstances, online dating became a highly demanded product. Moreover, the idea of finding a real-life partner online became even more realistic.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Online Dating
However, it should be mentioned that online dating still remains quite tricky and dangerous business with its traditional advantages and disadvantages.
Let's start with advantages of online dating:
- Of course, the Internet dating is not very expensive, and in most cases, it is free.
- The Internet sites can be accessed from every part of the world at any time of day and night.
- A person is safe from meeting the potential partner in real life until he or she really wants to.
- There is a really large number of people who try to find a partner thorough the Internet.
- The first real date becomes more pleasant, because people have already found out some information about each other while communicating through the Internet.
Nevertheless, we have to be careful while trying online dating because of the following reasons and examples:
- The L.A. Times has recently published a story that stated, "A Hawthorne man suspected of raping a woman he met through an online dating service was arrested at his apartment, police said Thursday".
- There is no guarantee that personal photos and the profile information provided on the site are true.
- There are a lot of people (the so-called scammers) that are interested in an online communication. They usually try to establish trustful relationships and meet a person in real life. However, there is no proof that their intentions are true and sincere. Some of the potential partners can be already married and just seek for sexual partners.
- There are users who can trace back the IP addresses and find out the locations of people with whom they contact through the Internet. It can be very dangerous in case some conflicts happen and the offended part wants to seek justice in real life. Every online dater must refrain from providing any personal information to the potential partner.
- It is also very important to appoint meetings in public places and tell friends or relatives where you are going and what time are you going to come back.
Conclusion
Today I have told you about the danger of online dating. You have learned that online dating can be not so good and secure as it seems to be, and that every person should be aware of this. Online dating is a good tool to meet new people and have an ability to communicate with them, but it is not worth relying on completely.