Relationships+Online

=
This article, named "**Online Dating Awareness and Dangers, One Woman's Story,** is about a woman who met a man over the internet, and thought he was her perfect match. She thought that she knew him so well, and agreed to meet with him one night. She made the mistake of letting him come to her house to pick her up. After the date, he came into her house, and tried to sexually assault her. The woman soon learned that online dating was not for her. She stated " I realized that when I tried the online dating thing - that if you're willing to pay 19.99 a month, you'll meet 19.99 guys." I can use this for my research because I can use the point that it is important to realize that you cannot trust anyone that you meet over the internet, because they may be lying about their true selves.  =====

Connecting through internet. []
==This article, “Connecting: How We Form Social Bonds and Communities in the Internet Age,” is very interesting and talks a lot about the topic that I want to research for my final paper. Her article talks about the common ground between mediated and face-to-face relationships. Chakyo then continues to say, “sociomental connections" to refer to "connections formed with 'others' who are not physically present.” That is very true among lots of relationships on the internet today. This article will be a good source for anyone who is researching relationships on the internet or peoples “need” to connect through the internet.==

Work Citied
” //American Journal of Sociology// 108.5 (Mar2003) : 1166-1168.

In this article, Kent Pickerman explains how the use of online dating can appear much different then you would assume. Pickerman states that "The real problem with online relationships is the users’ increased capacity to lie about who they really are and what they really want"( Pickerman). Though there has been many very successful relationships that have formed through online, there are still many that have failed. Pickerman's main point is that dating online can be very misleading and when the people who have met online meet in person can be really shocked by the way their partner appears. Pickerman also states that "Even with background checks, photo exchanges and the like, there is no guarantee the people you meet online are anything like the people they say they are. But, alas, this has more or less always been the way it’s been, even before the internet came along"(Pickerman). With this said, it just shows that anywhere you go. People will always not be completely honest with you.  Work Cited

Pinkerton, Kent "Pros and Cons of Online Relationships." __Pros and Cons of Online Relationships__. 22 Aug. 2005 //EzineArticles.com.// 22 Oct. 2009 [|http://ezinearticles.com/?Pros-­and-­Cons-­of-­Online-­Relationships&id=62752]

[|Post secrets article] PostSecrets and the need to connect My article that I am going to post under relationships is about PostSecrets. That is what I am going to do my final project on. Since there was no title called “connecting” for the wikispace I decided to put it under relationships. This article that I found is a wonderful one explaining what PostSecrets is and why Warren decided to do something like this. In the article Warren was quoted saying, “[The project] allows people to remove their social masks,” I think that really ties into what we have been learning about the media and how people try and portray themselves as something that they are not. In a sense that is a “Social Mask.” Warren continues to go on and say, “It allows a sense of solidarity. When I see humility, guilt ... I feel a connection. Maybe my own burdens are lighter. I feel secrets are a gift, They help me." As you can see even Warren understand that PostSecrets is about connecting with others even though you do not know them, it is about getting help when you don’t want to ask for it. At the end of this article Warren says, "We think we're keeping secrets, but the secrets are actually keeping us, With one courageous decision, you've freed a part of your life." Telling your secret just makes you feel better, and reading other peoples secrets makes you feel less alone. I am excited to do my ending essay on PostSecrets and on how people feel the need to connect.

[|Do online matchmaking tests work?]  Alessandra Santana In this article, James Houran talks about match making online. This article researches whether or not online dating sites do a good job matching people. He claims that “ married individuals who were paired using eHarmony's matching system are more satisfied in their relationships than individuals who were not paired by any particular matching system.” He also clains that married couples who meet online are more satisfied than those who meet offline because they are more comatible and know exactly what they are looking for. However in his suveys, it showed that those married through online dating sites are together a shorter time than those who meet offline.It also shows that they date for a shorter time before getting married. He also claims that, “couples who were paired by a matching system display a similar marital satisfaction and commitment trajectory over time as couples paired through idiosyncratic methods.” This article raises the question of was traits make two people compatible and does the system know how to pair people? Do they pair people who have many similarites or some differences? Most of the time couples are different in some ways because if their personalities are too similar they clash. This article will also help my research because it has statistics and a survey about online dating. Work Cited James, Houran. “Do Online Matchmaking Test Work?”  __North American Journal of Psychology__ 6 (2004): 507-526. 

Stephanie Burke

Is It Time to Meet In Person? http://lifestyle.msn.com/relationships/articlematch.aspx?cp-documentid=11463189 In the article,"Is It Time to Meet In Person?",freelance writer Natalie Erman-Russel discusses the general guidelines you should consider before meeting the individual you met online, and when! First it discusses how you should not wait too long; it advises you to meet the person after emailing and talking on the phone for about 2-3 weeks. Also, it is a cue that if your internet friend does not want to meet right around that time frame, they might have a hidden agenda. A variety of pictures are very important to see before you meet a person. Generally, people only put their best pictures up for showcase online and because of this you want to make sure you have a more broad understanding of what that person truly looks like. Also, before meeting you should make sure to discuss the issues that are really important to you, the article advises you to "do some prep work before your date"(Russel). In this context prepping yourself doesn’t apply to putting on make-up but to revisiting the persons social network site to refresh your memory on their values/characteristics. This can not only help you when forming conversations but also help you decide where you would like to meet that person. For example, if they like coffee you might want to take them to a coffee shop for your first meeting. Overall, this site offers very good information if you are looking to meet someone for the first time in person! It can help with your research for online dating/relationships.

Works Cited Erman-Russel,Natalie. "Is It Time to Meet in Person?" //MSN Relationships.// MSN Lifestyles, 2009. Web. 23 Oct. 2009.

Hayley Barrett's survey questions

A. Yes B. No
 * 1) Have you ever experienced an online relationship? (Beginning online)

2. How long did this online relationship last?/What type of relationship was this? A. Fling (lasting 1-2 months) B. Hookup situation (lasting 3-5 months) C. Serious relationship (8 months to lasting a year or more)

3. How long has one of your relationships in the “real world” lasted? A. Fling (lasting 1-2 months) B. Hookup situation (lasting 3-5 months) C. Serious relationship (8 months to lasting a year or more)

Marcus Manuso 9/18/09 3:52 PM
__[|Online Relationships - Liars or Friends?]__

This article is about online relationships. They took samples from a Melbourne website and analyzed the data. They wanted to know about online relationships and what their function is. They also studied stereotypes about meeting people online, such as lying about identity. The sample group consisted of people aging 15 to 57 years old, with the average age of 32 years. They found that two out of three people had created a personal relationship with someone they met online. Most relationships from the online chat rooms were between a man and a woman, however only 8% of the relationships were romantic ones. Most people on the online sites communicated through emails. This is a much more personal medium because only the sender and the receiver can see the messages, in contrast to a post on someone’s Facebook wall. One of the key problems with meeting people online is the fact that you can’t see who you’re talking to. Of course some sites require you to post a “profile picture” so that others can see what you look like, but there is no way to regulate the posting of false pictures. In their research they found that people that spend more time talking to people online (11+ hours per week) were more honest than people who spend less time (0-2 hours). Also, younger people are much more likely to lie than older people, especially with questions regarding age. The article concludes mentioning how friendships are much more common than romantic relationships online. I found it very interesting that a vast majority of online relationships are not romantic. When I think of online relationships I think of the online dating commercials that you see on T.V. everyday. The data mentioned in this article may not be accurate in this regard because it is from online chat rooms and doesn’t account for all online communication. I wasn’t surprised that young people lie more than older people do. I think that it has a lot to do with immaturity and not considering the reciprocations of their actions.

Ashton Holland, Sep 17th, 10:24 a.m.
"Lairs or Friends"

http://www.wikihow.com/Maintain-an-Online-Relationship How to maintain a relationship online???

In this article/website it gives you points on how to maintain a relationship online. The authors give 15 points of help. In this you can see that the author mainly focuses on keeping a well balanced form of communication and to make sure that neither person responds in a boring way or else the other person will get bored and or feel insulted and get angry. The authors also try and back up the excuse for keeping an online relationship with the idea that having an only online relationship can be in a way stronger because you're not together. They tell you that you should play games and ask each other may questions and to make your avatars a picture of the two of you (even though you only know each other online?). I personally think that this article is complete rubish because I do not believe in online relationships. There is a much stronger emotional pull with some one in person rather than online because online it is so much easier for a person to fake who they are. No matter how well you think you know the person there is always a chance that the person is completely fake because the web allows you to do WHAT EVER you want. This raises many questions such as what is this world coming to when it comes to technology? Or how desperate can some one get? I want to know why these people think that they can be in a relationship with some one that they possibly will never meet. I am not trying to be stubborn, but I want to focus on the point the the internet allows the ability to form different identities. Think about child molesters and rapists, cereal killers, and stalkers. I am just worried about my fellow peers and or future friends that might possibly be ruined by an online relationship if they think that they can be one. What if my next best friend finds out that his online girlfriend is a 35-year-old man named Ned. This text very well supports our research because it is "helping" us maintain these friendships that we form online.

Danny Cruz
[|psychology of cyberspace relationships] This article talked about key points that socializing through the internet has. The article talks about normal people becoming completely different online. A doctor, lawyer or even teacher may act professionaly through out their daily schedule, but online, they have the power to become a different person. They can, in a way, become their true selves. They dont have to worry about what they look like because no one can see them, he goes into more detail about being invisible with the people you socialize with and truly not being fully aware of their appearances. You have the power to go "wild" and curse, even look up pornography. You also have the power of controlling how much someone "sees" of you. You can customize profiles to and set certain things private, you can limit what you tell them and hold back ceratin information you may not necessarily want people to know. He also goes on and talks about not truly being able to connect to other people as you do in person to person contact. I found this article interesting because it covered a little bit of many topics. It included informatino about setting limits to what people see, becoming a different person, and peole not truly knowing whos on the other side. It also talked about the effects of not being able to emotionally connect to people. It also included information about people creating a "dream world" where they go and escape the real world. In this dream world, they can be whoever they want to be and do whatever they want to do. This article may seem appealing to a few people. Including: people trying to do reasearch on online dating, anonymity of internet users, and internet users being a completely different person online, (how the interenet changes people)

JP Smith: online relationships.
[] ====Close online relationships in a national sample of adolescence, by Janis Wolak Kimberly J. Mitchell and David Finkelhor. This article based on online relationships is loaded with huge amounts or information. Some 11 pages worth. It start off explaining why online relationships are so popular and how they attract its users. The anonymity of online relationships has caused several problems occurred, making them dangerous for adolescents because of sexual predators and such things. It goes through their youth surveys throughout 1999-2000. They asked ages and how often they were online. Next they asked whether or not they had conversed with any person more than once, (chat or email) this is important because after you have chatted with someone you begin to feel like friends even if you don’t really know the person you are talking to. This survey gave off some disturbing data in my opinion. It explains how far these relationships go and what types they are, such as romantic, close friendship, or acquiesces. This article just spits out enormous amount of information. Creepy stuff like a 17 year old dating a 29 year old and married woman. Then is goes into examples of face-to-face visits, quite a few of those. They decided that youths feel less self conscious online, that they rely on their inner self more than their characteristics. These guys really knew what they are doing. I find this research very convincing because of how in depth it is.====

Josh Borja 9/17/09
The Psychology of Cyberspace: [] In this online article the author believes that,"most relationships among people form and grow within typed text". But not everyone is as comfortable communictaing this way, while others communicate better through technology and texting. Many websites like Facebook can lead to meeting new people, and that can bring them closer together, and eventually they may begin to date. But the author also goes on to say that through the internet and texting people misinterpret what one may be saying, and take it the wrong way. So online dating can have good and bad points.

I found this article interesting, because the author explains that the internet may work better for some whom are frightened to start a relationship in person. So they use the internet to kick something off. The author also explains very important points when it comes to internet relationships like the reason people save messages. He says that they may do so that they can look back ,and reflect on what has been said and done in the relationship so far. This article can help our understanding on how internet relationships work, and how different people use internet dating.

Carissa Kellogg 9/17/09 Post #2 [|Online Dating Bad or Good?]


In this small article I read about online dating called “Online Dating Bad or Good,” the author Rohanthi expresses all the pros of online dating while still acknowledging the misinterpretations people may assume about internet dating. This article interested me because it seemed to come from an inside view from someone who has actually participated and experienced in the world of online relationships. Rohanthi expresses his claims by revealing that the new evolved world of online dating is a much safer and efficient way to interact and meet possible lovers all over while effectively taking away what he calls, “Eliminating the traditional meeting.”

Throughout the article Rohanthi acknowledges the misinterpretations people might assume when looking into online dating because many people claim it’s impersonal, too planned, and unsafe. Rohanthi argues back by claiming, “These were the same people that claimed women should be stay at home mothers.”

So in Rohanthi’s opinion online dating is just another opportunity for love and affection. While some people may still argue his opinions because the internet may be considered a risky place I believe dating in general is a dangerous act whether it be online or in person because you never really know who your dealing with.

Sarah Norris [|Pros and Cons of online relationships] In this Article it talks about why and why not online relationships are good. It goes more into depeth about how alot of people that find "love" over the enternet do not have the tools to hold the relationship together once the two parties have met eachother. It also talks about how people lie and do not usually turn out to be that really pretty girl or very handsome man. After reading the text I wondered what the percentage of people are using online dating services? Also I wondered how many people actually find love through these online dating services.And lasly I think it would be cool if people could find out if a realtionship last longer if they meet face to face before they started to date or meet on the enternet.Nothing was really confusing about this article, it was very straight to the point.I want to know more about online dating because i never knew that it was that popular to online date.This Article would be very interesting to anyone who is interested in writing about online relationships or dating.

At the start of social media, no one really new to think of it. Such as online dating, everyone was a little freaked out by it. You don’t know whom you are talking to, you can’t see they way they act, talk, or respond in your conversations. But throughout the years, social media on the web has become more and more popular. It can be a nice sense of comfort for people to join a group online, such as online dating, community groups, religious groups, homosexual groups, ect. For example, online dating is amazing for people who work inside their homes and don’t have a lot of time to go out and mingle. Or for a homosexual joining a gay online group to begin to feel except and part of the world. Online relationships are very important to the media world today. It is a feeling of acceptance, love and interest. Personally, i have always thought online dating was very unsafe. You never know who you are really talking to. There is always something on the news about people getting hurt after meeting the person that they have been talking to online. Although, because online dating is becoming more and more popular my ideas of online dating are starting to change. With this article everyone can use their research by how and why people form and why they form relationships online rather than in the real world. This article explains a lot about the relationships online, compares these relationships to the real world, and the effect of these relationships. By: TAYLOR HEATH [] [|Relationships Online]

[] By: Megan Merseth

I found this article about bad things about online relationships that they called "10 things online dating services wont say. It struck my attention so i started reading it. The article is about the things the site you are working with wont tell you, all the bad things. One of the things she mentioned was "keep your hopes high and your expectations low" i though that was interesting because it sounded so true to me. They show you all the good statistics and non of the bad. She makes all of her points by backing them up with facts and showing some of the bad statistics that no one seems to show you. I feel like i want to know more about how online dating works and why people turn to it. I think it would be a very interseting thing to research because i think i would be embarrassing to do it. Like thinking you can't get a date so you turn to online dating, and how could you not think the person you meet on the web isnt a total freak if he too felt like he needed to turn to the internet to get a date. That seems very interesting and something i would want to research more. Someone could use this text and refer to it when they are writing an essay about the bad things of online relationships. The author basically lays ten things out on paper that make online relationships bad.

Online dating is now one of the most popular businesses in the Internet. The number of single adults using online dating increases everyday. One of the most important statistics on this website is that emails dating can be more interactive than normal dating. Around 32% of people are able to convert their online relationships to a real life date. I found all of these facts on the link I am giving. This site also gives the large amount of money online dating websites are making. This website was very interesting to read because I did not realize how common it is for someone to be in an online relationship. I also did not realize how much money these industries are making. I am surprised so many people are comfortable with dating online over dating someone in person. Sure, dating in person might be a little inconvenient for some of our busy schedules, but isn't it worth it? I guess it is not a priority to everyone. This raises some questions for me. Why are people so comfortable with someone that they have never met, that could be lying and pretending to be someone else, someone just messing with you, or someone trying to hurt you? Is online dating actually making things easier for everyone, should everyone start their relationships by meeting someone online?? That may be something I will not find out until far into the future, but it is still something I want to know. I do not think anyone ever expected online dating to become so popular around the world. This is definitely something I would be interested in researching. This website would be great for anyone to read if you are looking for any specific statistics on online dating.

By: Monica Carroll [|What Online Dating Statistic Reveal]

Truth Behind Internet Dating Haley Hilbers

[] This week I chose a video for my wikispace post research. The video I chose was about online dating. The point the author was making is that online dating isn’t exactly the best idea because you can never really know who you’re talking to. They show this when the characters in the video use fake pictures to send to each other, both saying that it was a picture of themselves! They planned to meet up downtown but neither of them will be able to find each other because they don’t know what the other person actually looks like. A question that came up about this text is, “How many people actually give false pictures and then continue on with meeting up?” You see all these commercials on TV of people that find their ‘soul mates’ via online dating, but it never shows the actual dangers of it. This video supports our research because it shows one of the many ways people have transformed the internet to benefit themselves, and how some people use the internet to harm other people. From veiwing this text we can further explore the motives of the people that use the internet in these ways.

The Truth about Online Dating Natasha Adam http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-truth-about-online-da

Robert Epstein’s “The Truth about Online Dating” discusses the reasons why people believe a fake dating profile will leverage them to receive more potential suitors, rather than displaying their authentic characteristics. In addition, this article explores how these dating sites claim they can help people find the perfect match, but in a study there was a” 1 in 500 chance that you'll marry this person.... Given that eHarmony delivers about 1.5 matches a month, if you went on a date with all of them, it would take 346 dates and 19 years to reach [a] 50% chance of getting married." The potential to discover a life long mate by using these online dating sites is slim, based on that the research is not substantial and the grouping of suitors are chosen by having like qualities and not including individuals with opposite traits. As online dating is becoming more dangerous with predators capable of creating dating profiles, a new form of online dating is emerging called virtual dating. This type of dating is allowing people to no longer be prevented from meeting in person but be able to have a romantic virtual date. After this virtual date, couples who had met virtually were more comfortable meeting their online date than those who had not met virtually. My Uncle married a woman whom he met through online dating and it made me wonder if the statistic is underestimating the potential of online dating. I had never heard of virtual dating and it made me question what a real date would be like versus an online virtual date. I would like to find more information about virtual dating because it raised a lot of question for me - how do people meet each other in this virtual world? Do people find each other by having like traits? The text might support our research by explaining the reasons why people create fake identities on their dating profile. This article might also provide how people’s identities differ from online virtual dating to dating in the real world.

 Kevin Kirberg http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~bakera/ArticleH.htm

When I was cruising down the list of web sites yahoo gave me after searching relationships online. I found “What Makes an Online Relationship Successful?” so I clicked on it. The article is about a study from the US Census that as of September, 2001, more than half of all Americans have computers in their home and over 50% of Europeans in the United Kingdom, Iceland, Finland, and Sweden have computers too. Match.com reported that 382,000 people have logged on and Canadian online users have more than one million people who have tried an online dating site. What I thought was really interesting was that so many people have tried it and have been so successful from it. no possible way I would be able to have a relationship through the internet. It just doesn’t human to me. To all those in class who want to look deeper into relationships online for your topic. I recommend visiting this site.

Megan Merseth 10-05-09

[]

I found this article about the different ways text can be read. You can say the same exact thing, and the person reading it can take it the wrong way but they were to see you say it, they would have known what you really ment. I am realting this to my topic question whick is online relationships because when you are looking for a date online, how do you take what they say in their description about them? What if someone had something about them and another like it, but they took what they said different then they ment it. The article talkes about how conflict can happen and be blown way out of porportion, when really it was no big deal. If you are going to be putting your emotions on the line for an online relationship, how well do you trust the people you have never even seen in person? This article sparked my idea and got me more and more interested in online relationships. The article also talked about how do to your emotions, you write some things, but then your emotions might change and you might regret writing that but by then people have already read it. That can also happen in your online relationship, they cant see you or your body language so they can read what you say and judge you within that text, when really your not like that, you were just upset.

I am now really excited about researching online relationships. There are alot more things about online relationships that I didn't knoe before. As i read more articles i learn more and more. I am going to do more and more research and now and this article really sparked my interest.

Megan Merseth 10-15-09 []

In the article I found about online relationships called, "Don't Dismiss Online Relationships as Fantasy" it talkes about how some people go online because they are addicted to it, Like sometimes people have a seperate life with a family and a good job, but at the same time they are addicted to talking to others online. In one story the article talked about, this couple met online, and eventually got married. But little did she know, he was addicted to being online and talking to other women. So being online was a good thing for him because he found his wife, but at the same time he couldn't break his addiction and it eventually lost him his wife also. The article also talkes about how when two people are talking online there is no actuall chemistry untill they meet, but others argue that there has to be chemistry because if there wasn't they wouldn't waiste their time going out to meet one another in the first place. I think that by talking online you can have a conection, and chemistry. It is almost the same as texting someone.

The more and more articles I read it gets me more and more interested in the Online Relationship topic. I like how many different things and ideas can come out of one topic. I think that this topic will get me through my whole research project successfully.

====With the internet booming in todays economy, it leaves us open to many more outcomes to using the internet. For example, such as meeting new people online and possibly dating these new people and finding out more out about them on the internet. his research examines relational topography in real-time text-based<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 9px/21px Helvetica;"> virtual environments known as MOOs (Multi-User Dimensions, Object<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 9px/21px Helvetica;"> Oriented). Current users of MOOs (235) completed a survey on<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 9px/21px Helvetica;"> MOO relationships, with 155 also completing a survey on offline<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 9px/21px Helvetica;"> relationships. Almost all survey respondents (93.6%) had formed ongoing personal relationships with MOO's. Most commonly <span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 9px/21px Helvetica;"> types of relationships were close friendships, friendships and<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 9px/21px Helvetica;"> romances. The majority of relationships formed (83.6%) was with<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 9px/21px Helvetica;"> members of the opposite sex. Levels of relational development<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 9px/21px Helvetica;"> (interdependence, depth, breadth, code change, commitment, predictability/understanding,<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 9px/21px Helvetica;"> network convergence) were typically moderate to high. Most relationships<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 9px/21px Helvetica;"> had migrated to other virtual environments, and a third had resulted in face to face results. In todays society online dating is becoming very more popular. With this information and other information I find on other internet site s i do believe that i will be able to find good information to supply my research with.====

Christina Travlos [] Patti M. Valkenburg, Ph.D and Jochen Peter, Ph.D are the authors of the arcticle. “Who Visits Online Dating Sites? Exploring Some Characteristics of Online Dater.” The author’s thoughts that “the growing popularity of online dating sited is hardly surprising. First, on the internet, spatial proximity is irrelevant, and meeting similar people is easier than in real-life dating. Second, online dating can occur without help from friends”(Valkenburg & Peter). This article explains and does research and comes up with percentages of people that do specific things while thinking about online dating. For example, they did a “sample and procedure” about 367 Dutch adult singles between a certain age group and had them fill out a questionnaire. The results were “43.0% indicated that they had visited a dating site…33.2% had posted an online profile on a dating site (9.0% one profile; 6.5%two profiles; 7.4% three profiles;4.6%four profiles and 5.8%five to ten profiles). To investigate how age, gender, educational level, and income (first goal) and dating anxiety (second goal) would predict online dating” (Valkenburg & Peter). The questions that came from my reading this article are that what happens when people find someone they are really into but end up dealing with a long distance between them? Also, did these people that were doing the research experiment did they keep their identities confidential because they are known for being shy or did they say do it unconfidential? This article will help a lot with my research because online dating is a very broad topic and it is good to get statistics from all over and it has a lot of good points to what online is and why and what kinds of people do it.

WORK CITIED Valkenburg, M. Peter & Peter, Jochen. “Who Visits Online Dating Sites? Exploring Some Characteristics of Online Dater.” //Rapid Communication.// Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.November 6, 2007. October 22, 2009.

Sarah Machado http://hubpages.com/hub/Finding_your_Soulmate_Online In the article, “Finding Your Soul Mate online, Lenkir gives tips and advice for those people who want to try online dating. Lenkir explains how he, like others could not find his soul mate through means of school or work. This is when people turn to online dating. Lenkir states, “ Before, internet dating was something you would not tell your friends you are doing. Now, it would almost be considered strange of you were single for more than a year and never have tried it.” Lenkir goes onto point out the rights and wrongs of online dating, what to look for when looking at profiles, how not to get over zealous and skip over important information in someone’s profile, and he points out the “DO’s and DON’T’S” of online dating. This site offers good information if you are looking to meet someone over the internet for the first time, or if you have done it before and it didn’t work out for you, what to look for. This text is useful for online dating research. WORK CITED Lenkir. "Finding Your Soul Mate Online." //Hub Pages.// Web. 23 October 2009.

<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">This article is about relationships between teenagers age 10 through 17 online. They use a large population for their study, unlike other research done about this. They use information from a national telephone survey called Youth Internet Safety Survey. In the beginning they talk about how social websites are becoming more popular but because of the anonymity, there are some fear the danger especially for younger kids. But this conclusion is from a small study. There was a lot of statistics in this article. Even though most of the information was harmless, some of the answers they got were very eye opening for me. “[One] instance was a relationship between a 17-year-old boy and a 29-year-old woman. The boy told the interviewer he ended the relationship when he learned the woman was married” (4). This just shows how much someone can withhold in an online relationship. One only knows what the other wants to show. Which has to make someone think, is this the real them?

Work cited: <span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">Wolak, Janis. “Close online relationships in a national sample of adolescents.” //Adolescence//. FindArticles.com. 23 Oct, 2009. Web. 23 Oct, 2009. []

In Daryl Campbell's article "Online Dating Relationships and the Good Bad Tool" he talks about the advantadges and disadvantadges of online dating and relationships. He states that online relationships gives your a lot of time to do other things and look at people that might interest you annoynomusly. He states that one of the disadvantadges are the possibility of a lie. " You have to trust the person on the other side of the monitor is who they say they are. Not surprisingly they are hoping the same thing when it comes to you. All the two of you have to go on is the words in the profile and the conversations you share in the chat room. Many online dating services and members have gotten pretty good at the screening process but there are no one hundred percent guarantees. The best advice would be that if you have doubts about someone then end all communication. Better safe than sorry"(Campbell). I enjoyed this article because I liked how he showed the positive and negative affects of online dating and the benefits and worries that come along with it.

In John Suler’s article “The Psychology of Cyberspace-Hypothesis about Online Relationships” he discusses why some people choose online relationships as opposed to real life ones. He thinks that people think it is easier and less stressful and also “some people experience text relationships as more predictable, safe, and less anxiety provoking than actual relationships” (Suler). When having an online relationship, it is a lot easier to be someone you’re not. He says that many people, mainly adults, feel more comfortable talking online because they feel that it is too late to find a significant other at that stage in their lives. What I enjoyed about this article was how he got his information. He interviewed a lot of people who participated in online dating and asked them a variety of questions. This makes him seem reliable because his information was taken from people that are actually online daters.

Works Cite Suler, John. "<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">The Psychology of Cyberspace-Hypothesis about Online Relationships." 23 Oct, 2009. Web. 23 OCT, 2009. [|http://www.onlinedatingsites.co.za/using-online-dating-sites.html]