Meeting friends today can be as easy as just logging onto a Facebook or Twitter account. No more is there talking on the phone or even getting to know someone face to face. Everything is becoming digital and social media is playing a big role in the growth of online relationships. Whether it is a boyfriend or girlfriend, or a good friend, it is becoming more and more likely that communicating through social media will help strengthen the relationship.
Online dating is becoming very popular in the world. According to the Pew Research Center: “Fifteen percent of Americans have used online dating themselves and a larger share report that they are familiar with online dating from the experiences of people they know.
Some 41 percent of American adults say they know someone who uses online dating, while 29 percent indicate they know someone who has married or entered into a long-term partnership with someone they met via online dating.” There are so many apps and websites that can connect a person with another that it is hard to avoid.
Stephanie Smick, a student at North Central College says, “I’ve used Tinder and OkCupid before. I wasn’t really looking for something serious when I used them though. It was more for fun than anything else.”
It is very common for people at a younger age to use the website for more of a time waster than anything else. eHarmony says that 20 percent of people in committed relationships began online while only 7 percent of marriages started from a dating site.
A downfall of online dating however, can be how easy it is to lie on a profile. A term that has recently come to light is “catfishing.” “Cat fishing,” or being “catfished” means that a person does not look like or act the way that they portrayed themselves on their online profile. Most people do not lie that drastically.
According to The Washington Post, “People do exaggerate, just as they do in person. OkCupid has found, for example, that men and women more or less uniformly add two inches to their height.” It does not have to be lying about what the person looks like, just little features that they might find unattractive.
Some people however, do use it seriously. Brock Ehlers, an architect from Chicago, says that he uses Happn. Happn is slightly different from other dating sites because it allows him to look up a person that he has crossed paths with on the streets, given that they have an account too. He has had a couple different relationships from various online dating sites. Nothing that has lasted, but he did meet a girl that he ended up dating for three years and they had met online.
It may be a small percentage of people who have met online and end up together for the long run, but without online dating, they may have not gotten together at all. According to the Huffington Post, “Online daters have a better chance of meeting their match online, although most people still pair bond offline.” That is exactly what happened with Mirra Duffy and Cam Smith.
Mirra and Cam met three years ago on Tinder. Mirra says that Cam messaged her first after they had matched and they decided to meet up. When that first date went well, they exchanged numbers and have been talking ever since. They have had their share of problems, just like all couples, but they started online. Even though there is a stigma that people who have met online never last, they are still going strong.
Cam says, “At first, my parents were unsure about me having a relationship that started on Tinder, but after a while, they got used to it.”
Online dating is still a new-fangled thing in today’s society, but younger people are becoming more accepting of couples who met online. It can connect people who may have never met in the first place. Finding “the one” could just be a click away.
