online dating

Name

Professor /Instructor

Subject

Date

Love Bytes : An Analysis of Online Dating

People used to look for a life partner through old-fashioned courtship They would first meet on the job , at school , in church or through friends . After a period of exclusive dating and meeting each other 's families , the couple would then decide if they should move their relationship forward to engagement , and , ultimately , marriage

But the advent of the Internet apparently spelled the end for traditional courtship (Fullerton , n . pag . Nowadays , not only people can shop

and pay bills online - they can also use the Web to look for partners or spouses (Fullerton , n . pag . Thanks to online dating , love letters , phone calls and face-to-face dates have been replaced with romantic emails and emoticons (Fullerton , n . pag . This has led to the conclusion that online dating has made finding a life partner .as simple as point and click (Fullerton , n . pag

Online dating was formerly regarded as the matchmaker for the awkward (Fiore , n . pag . It was seen as the digital-age counterpart of joining a singles ' club or posting a personals ad in the news (Neils , n . pag . The stigma to online dating was so strong that it produced the belief that online dating services catered to the lonely and the desperate (as well as ) computer geeks with no social skills (Neils , n . pag

This perception no longer holds true (Neils , n . pag . In a 2003 Lycos survey of 1 ,100 members who did not join Matchmaker .com , 59 said that they were likely or very likely ' to avail of online dating services - a sharp increase from 29 two years ago (Neils , n . pag . Only 12 intended to use news personals (Neils , n . pag . Meanwhile , a July 2002 study conducted by Udate .com on 14 ,833 of its members (6 ,204 women and 8 ,629 men ) revealed that 68 of the respondents considered online dating better than traditional courtship and 63 believed that they would find their ideal partner online (Neils , n . pag

Online dating sites work by matching technology and pros (Neils , n . pag . Users can create pros about themselves , which includes information about the type of person that they want to have a relationship with (Neils , n . pag . The site would then proceed to look for common matches between the seeker and the sought (Neils , n . pag There are even some online dating sites that are exclusively geared towards a certain age , religion or sexual preferrence (Neils , n . pag Online dating sites usually offer free trial memberships , which enable users to register , post pros , specify match criteria and send and receive emails (Neils , n . pag . At the end of the free trial period (normally after a month , users are required to pay a monthly fee to maintain their subscription (Neils , n . pag

At present , almost every ISP and major global portal has their own online dating site or an affiliation with one (Neils , n . pag Websites such as Yahoo , MSN , Earthlink , Verizon and AOL now...