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Online dating gets a Faceit! The prevalence of social networking sites such as Facebook among college-age singles has led to an increased acceptability for online dating, says relationship expert Laurie Davis. Singles sites such as Zoosk.com connect directly to social networking sites, lessening the stigma of online dating and making it easier for people to start dating.
Photo illustrations by Jerry Wang
Although Amanda Heather had done this before, she was beginning to get cold feet about her first date with J.L. She had spent a month talking to him through e-mails and over the phone, but was beginning to fear J.L. wouldn't be the guy she fell for on the internet. She still thought that at age 22, she could meet a guy as good as J.L. in a more conventional way.
Online dating is a phenomenon that has been around since at least 1995, the year Match.com made its debut. When the trend started, older singles seemed to be the target market for the site. However, 15 years later, the popularity of online dating is steadily increasing nationwide for all ages thanks to the increased role of social networking.
Although young singles such as Heather, 2006 graduate, sometimes feel they shouldn't need online dating, the fact is that through social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, the college-aged generation is becoming more prone to using the internet to connect with people.
In a study done by the Pew Internet & American
Life Project in December 2009, 93 percent of the 18-29-year-old group was reported as internet users. The study also showed that younger adults age 18-24 make up 28 percent of the entire social networking population.
According to Laurie Davis, host of LoveNation, a weekly web show that covers emerging trends in the dating world, social networking and new technology are allowing more people to be digitally connected romantically through a process she terms as "micro-dating."
"Micro-dating and mobile dating are allowing younger singles to connect faster and more deliberately than the more traditional styles of dating," Davis says. "Online dating applications are being added directly to social networking sites to appeal to more young adults."
Zoosk.com is one of the many companies doing just this, creating a paradigm in online dating. By allowing singles to connect through a site such as Facebook, the founders of Zoosk.com hope to make the online dating process effortless by incorporating it with an everyday activity.
"We cater to an audience so that they don't
have to actively think about daring," says Alex Mehr, co-founder of Zoosk.com. "As a result, we integrate online dating into social networking."
The truth of the matter is that social networking is becoming the new face of how young adults are meeting for friendship, love and even sex. Social networking users are becoming much more relaxed about uploading information and photos onto the web and as a result, creating more couples.
Cell phone applications for online dating are also becoming popular. Skout is an iPhone app that uses the iPhone's GPS to offer a real-time location-based service for online daters. With this app, a single could view profiles based on location. This allows singles to reach out to people at the same bar as them with less anxiety.
After meeting J.L. though an online dating site when she was a senior in 2006, Heather dated him for a year, married him five months later and they've been together ever since.
Statistics of Singles
1. Eighty-three million Americans between the ages of 19 and 45 are singles and 40 million of them use online dating services.
2. Fourty-four percent of the adult American population is single. That's more than 100 million people, making your odds much better than you think.
3. On average, there are 86 single men to every 100 single women in America. So, the odds are slightly in favor of men finding a mate.
4. Only 2 percent of men find relationships from a barstool. This number only goes up to 9 percent for women.
5. The online dating industry generates $1.8 billion in revenue annually and the dating coach/matchmaker industry generates $260 million
Source: Online News
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