Hi everyone!
My name is Bianca Ghiselli and I am a junior in the ILR school. I spent my freshman year at Rutgers University and then transferred to Cornell in the fall of 2006. I am a huge soccer fan (AC Milan!) and I refuse to watch any other sport. As most (female) college students I spend too much time on Facebook, updating my profile and looking at my friends’ recently uploaded pictures. I am very interested in organizational behavior and social psychology and would like to pursue a career in human resources consulting.
The internet phenomenon of finding love online has caught my attention the most. eHarmony.com has now become the new way of meeting “the one” among “singles in your area”. But…why? Have we become so lazy that we’d rather sit at home and chat online? Are we hiding behind laptop screens hoping our personality will win the heart of prince charming before he meets us in person? Or have we become so cynical that we have abandoned every hope of coming cross mr. right in our circle of friends? And isn’t the idea of stumbling across “the one” among a pool of online strangers an even more farfetched concept than meeting your true love at Starbucks on a random Tuesday morning?
e-Harmony.com is both an asynchronous discussion forum and a synchronous chat. In an asynchronous discussion forum, members can publish their profiles on the web and post replies to each other and read what others have said at any time of day or night. Some profiles may receive lots of hits while others might be completely ignored. Also, as Wallace states, such websites allow you to “…become part of a discussion among people of similar interests, regardless of their geographic location; you may know the participants in real life, or you may have never met any of them.” On the other hand, these forums can also be synchronous chats. Once a person feel he or she has found the right match, they can begin to entertain private real-time conversations by typing brief messages.
This is not to say that I don’t think that love can be found online or that relationships formed over the net are less “real” than any others but I do believe that nothing can replace real-life interaction. Our grandparents met in college, through mutual friends or at work…so why can’t we?
3 comments:
What a great post :) Thinking about the objectives and consequences behind a website like eharmony.com is certainly pertinent in today's evolving "e-society". Some of us may even dabble in online dating after graduation, if we haven't done so already (I haven't yet, just in case anyone is curious).
The question of the realness of communication over a website like eharmony.com is important, since it's going to be used in a country where half of all marriages result in divorce. We've discussed in class that communication in CMC results in less social restraint since nonverbal cues are filtered out (CFO). Will this make it easier to approach an individual who leaves an appealing profile online, rather than approaching that woman who caught your eye across a Starbucks? Probably, you certainly paid enough for it. What about the substance of a newfound connection made with someone online? People seem to give less time and thought to marriage these days, and therefore get divorced because the relationship was not as strong as one would have hoped. Would an online dating service facilitate this lack of thought?
Then again, eharmony does offer a match for you based on 1,000 levels of compatibility - or something like that according to their commercials. Perhaps having more information about a person's hobbies, likes, and dislikes creates a persona that's more warm than the cold exterior exuding from a Times New Roman font. Also, having a picture of someone with a nice smile sends a good nonverbal cue.
A dating service like eharmony could be a positive thing in today's society, particularly for those pursuing professional careers. America is the richest country in the world because it is also the busiest, with increased demands on one's time from work, as well as increased pressure or need to attend more years of school. If someone has focuses on their professional life more and their social life less, it leaves less of an opportunity to find that special someone. And if that moment is postponed in years, maybe finally meeting the one you were destined to be with can be helped along with eharmony.com.
Hey Bianca! Your interesting post really got me thinking about the state of the world today. People are relying on the internet profiles to try and find true love. Even if people have some of the same interests and likes, it doesn't mean that their personalities are compatible or even that they are telling the truth. As a form of asynchrounous and synchronous communication on the internet, as you stated, these people are banking on the fact that the person they have fallen in love with on the website looks and acts anything like they say they do. I believe that deception plays an important role in this craze, at least stretching the truth at its minimal point. How deceitful can people be if they know that they may have to meet the person they are speaking with at some time? At the same time, can you really get to know someone online enough to marry them? Like Kristina said, over half of marriages end in divorce...I wonder if online dating is only adding to this figure.
You’re right, this is definitely a very funny phenomenon. What’s so much more reassuring about meeting people through a computer screen than, for instance, through beer – the model social lubricant? Is it that Internet dating is easier? Or that we feel more protected from rejection? Are we simply lazy? Does anyone remotely reasonable really believe that a lasting connection can be formed without ever testing for real, physical chemistry?
This gets me thinking about human nature. Have our social skills, confidence levels and personal relationships changed from just a few decades ago? Or has our changing environment changed us? And in both its synchronous and asynchronous forms, isn’t eHarmony just a grown up version of Facebook? You stalk someone, think they’re cute, send a message, receive a response, and probably proceed to begin instant messaging if things go as planned. Where is the reality in that? Are you really looking for marriage sitting in the living room in your pajamas?
Because Internet deception is so easy, sites like eHarmony are even more flawed than they appear to be. Not only is the user forming a cyber relationship with a complete stranger, but his/her new love interest may not even be who he/she claims to be! It’s simple to pick a picture from 10 pounds ago, 10 years ago, or even of someone else entirely. And as for listing your interests? A couch potato of a man may write ‘lifting’ and ‘cycling’ as potentially attractive hobbies, catching the eye of the gym rat female seeking a partner with a similar interest in fitness. What happens when the cyber connection gets so good that the two meet up for a jog? Too too bad for our lazy lying friend.
As promised, Internet dating appears to be bologna. So get up, get out, and get schmoozing!
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