Internet dating is becoming so common that is it having a noticeable effect on our culture at large. Although most of this effect has been a positive, one area of concern for many is the effect that internet relationships are having on individuals, especially teenagers.
Online dating has been a revolution ever since it started, but like every coin has another side to it. Online dating poses some serious side effects, which if not taken care of shall result in disasters. You need to understand on how online dating can affect your life, habits, routine and time management. Before getting into details, a word of caution to all those passionate online daters: be careful and understand that prevention is better than cure!
For first timers, it’s an amazing, new and unseen experience which immediately attracts their attention. But you might end up having a bad company, someone who might mislead you, someone who might exploit you and what not? First of all, extensive online dating can turn into an addiction that kills your study time.
People who tend to get involved in such relationship tend to forget everything else and sit in front of the computer or pressing their phone almost throughout the day; such activities not only affect their other work but their health as well. They tend to stay online for long periods, skipping meals and sleep and avoiding their responsibilities. These individuals also drift away from family and friends and start experiencing drastic mood swings. The worst is when they have a problem with their phone or cannot login to the website, they become highly frustrated and keep on grumbling.
More negative effects of online dating:
1. Risk of meeting a dishonest person who created a profile with a dating site only for scamming other member, telling them he/she is in need of help and would appreciate if they could cooperate with money.
2. It’s easy to be fooled by inaccurate signals online. When you go online, instead of seeing a person up-close, hearing him speak and watching her move, what you get is a blurry, postage-stamp size series of static photos which cannot be heard, felt, or smelled.
3. You can waste a lot of time online chasing what you don’t want. Here’s the timeline of a typical online courtship for a guy: He sees a profile of a girl he likes. He writes her. He gets a response. An online correspondence ensues.
If her interest continues, they speak on the phone, and begin to plan a meeting. A week or two later, after anywhere from three to 10 or more points of online- and phone contact, they meet in person. And it turns out that she has bad skin (which didn’t show in the flatteringly lit photos) or her butt is too flat (which didn’t show in her waist-up photos), or he’s 6 inches shorter than advertised — or some other insurmountable shortcoming that could have been ascertained in the first 30 milliseconds of an in-person encounter.
In an instant, all those hours spent on witty texts, all of that effort to be charming on the phone, learning all about him or impressing her. And worst of all, you kinda feel like a fool for building it all up in your mind for naught.
4. And of course, for ladies, there is also the risk of falling into wrong hands – people who after gaining your trust will capitalise on it and abuse you to any length, which might include rape
Internet has been a great revolution and probably the very reason for the arrival of the information age, but you need to be careful while using it because addiction to anything is never good. And when it comes to online dating, it is great if you find a genuine person but it can really be very dangerous too. There are many more, less risky, options to finding a partner.
