funnymen romantic: Online Dating Among Younger Generations

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Online Dating Among Younger Generations | Multimedia Newsroom

By: Janine Aldaba, Kellie McKnight, Linda Vasquez and Arryn Zech

Infographic Credit to: Janine Aldaba
Source: MBAPrograms.org

Is Age No Longer a Factor in Online Dating

By: Arryn Zech

Is Online Dating Still Taboo?

By: Kellie McKnight and Linda Vasquez

Online dating once seemed to be taboo and only practiced by older people. However, in recent times, it seems those opinions are changing as well as the age groups.
Brad Armstrong is the creator of over 135 online dating websites. All of his sites are what he calls, ?niche sites,? because they are for people with a common hobby, such as cycling or tattoos.

?Those three pieces came together, local coffee shop, Match.com, and the fragmentation of interests of cable television,? Armstrong said. ?So then I said, ?Let?s do niche online dating sites,? and we were the first to do that.?

Mark Lalonde, a student at Austin Community College met his girlfriend through online dating site, OkCupid. He said his past relationships were unstable and he wanted to take a different approach for his next significant other.

?I was actually tired of meeting girls at bars and parties because my two previous relationships turned out to be kind of crazy and just really unstable,? Lalonde said. ?I wanted to see what else was out there.?

Online dating allows its users to meet and communicate with many different people. Lalonde said he felt like online dating worked really well for him because of this reason.

?It wasn?t really the way I expected to meet my partner,? Lalonde said. ?But I would say it worked out pretty well because I could meet a lot of different people and try to gauge who I wanted to be with.?

However, Armstrong said he sees younger generations dating differently and traditional dating is going away.

?It seems like the younger men are getting pretty dumb,? Armstrong said. ?And maybe that?s been going on for a long time but they?ve forgotten how to treat a woman and the ubiquity of the internet, the ease of connection with the internet, and the freedom of sexuality has allowed, it seems in my opinion, the young boys, the men to get lazy.?

Another concern with online dating is the concern of, ?Is this person real?? Recently, Manti Te?o, the linebacker for Notre Dame, admitted to being ?catfished? by an online dater. Te?o believed he had been dating Lennay Kekua but it had been a man behind the hoax. Lalonde said after being on the OkCupid website for an extended period of time, he was appointed to moderator of the site.

?It?s out there, there are people out there trying to scam,? Lalonde said. ?In fact, I?ve talked to a few guys I?ve met in real life where they work for some type of marketing company and they?ll make fake girl profiles and message girls to try to promote their products.?

While there are some concerns with online dating, the overall concept seems to be positive and many people find a significant other. The technological access and easiness to communicate with someone definitely shows while all age groups are picking up on the concept.