Firstly, I think the world we are living in has changed more so for the worst and especially in the dating world today. Before the invention of the iPhone people had to be people. What I mean by this is women had to confront men and men had to confront women. In today’s world people either swipe left or swipe right. People base their “romantic” life based upon looks. The sad part of reality is that looks get the date and that’s all that matters on online dating.
Since the invention of the iPhone we can see that only a sad 30% of people haven’t relied upon a “dating” app to seek romantic company. Looking at further studies of the Pew Research Center we can also see how flawed online dating is when only 23% of the people on these dating apps have actually gone on a date before. When you look even further you can see how flawed online dating is and how unsuccessful online dating has become when only 12 percent of the people who use these apps have actually ever even been in a relationship from these apps.
The fact of the matter is that there is significant proof as to why maybe these dating apps are a bad idea. With the field of I study I have taken in college I have always been able to see through the fake golden curtain people put over their online profiles. People lie and try to glorify their success, looks, lifestyle, friends, etc. and to my surprise and also not to my surprise 71 percent of people have admitted to lying about themselves to appear more desirable online according to Pew Research Center. The reason I found this surprising is because I knew all along through personal interactions how people pretend to be one person and go online and become somebody completely different. The reason I am not surprised however is because people have become so desperate to be accepted by people in today’s world that they can fake being the perfect person online and get away with it. Perhaps this is the reason why online dating relationships are at 12 percent as mentioned above.
“I don’t think the online presence of dating provides any safety at all, or online anything to be safe, you don’t know who you’re dealing with on the internet” stated Nicole King a 43-year-old woman. Which again, not to my surprise, I expected this type of answer from her. Statistically more women think online dating apps are unsafe than men by a huge margin.
Aside from safety concerns possibly leading to the reason online dating is flawed we can look at other statistics and areas of the topic, one in particular subject being “hook ups”. According to eharmony.com more than half of men on online dating sites aren’t looking for anything besides a hook up, which in contrast shows that less than 30 percent of women online are looking for hookups. Once again, I am not surprised by these findings as it is the natural biology of men and women to be like this. All the more, the further we look into online dating statistics, the more we can see how it is flawed.
“I hate dating apps, every time I used them guys send you pervy messages and it makes me not want to be on those kind of apps, I’d rather a guy walk up to me, it’s less stalker-ish” stated Madeline Johnson, a 20 year university student.
This quote ties into the next subject of concern on why online dating is flawed and does not work well, being online safety with dating apps. Safety is a huge concern for people when on these type of applications. According to datingadvice.com 10 percent of users on dating apps are sexual offenders and 25% of the users are rapists. I found this extremely unveiling. I always knew dating apps sounded sketchy and weary, but there really is a lot of potential danger to consider when using these apps.
There are also other types of dangers on online dating sites and apps to be weary of and that is the risk of scam and fraud. According to Phactual market research, there are 10% of online users that are scamming people out of money, banking information, etc. These cons cost people on average around 50 million dollars every year.
All in all, I have always been skeptical of anything online involving dating, there is so much to dodge when trying to find a “match” that at the end of the day I find it best to do it the old-fashioned way. Which is man-ing up and asking him or her on a date or for a phone number. There is too many scenarios that could lead you to compromise your safety and life alone on these apps and websites, you also never know who these people actually are online either.
Bloomsburg Infographics 