How honest are people who participate in online dating? It is so tempting to use the Internet to manipulate your identity (Gibbs, Elison, Heino). In a study done by these researchers, they found a surprising result that honestly has a negative effect on the self-presentation success of relationships. One explanation is that lack of honesty results in a better impression of oneself. A person is able to edit the flaws and bad habits. The easiest mode to do this through is online dating because that person does not have face-to-face contact with the other person, especially at the beginning of a budding relationship. Social penetration theory supports this because the theory claims people do not give out negative information in the early stages of the relationship. This same study conducted a survey that found similar results. People misrepresented facts such a physical appearance, relationship goals, age, income and marital status (Gibbs, Elison, Heino).
Social Penetration Theory is all about how people reveal layers of themselves. What does it take to get to those deepest layers of person information? Online dating brings a whole new dimension to this theory. In a face-to-face relationship, there is no way around revealing certain layers. You can’t hide your appearance or age or income. Online dating provides a way to dance around those details. You can embellish and hide whatever you want. The layers that normally get revealed at the initiating stage can be avoided. Is this a healthy way to date? Or is it okay to avoid those issues as long as possible?
This is so interesting. I definitely think that online dating can cause problems with relationships. Without being able to see another's flaws or true characteristics at first, it only magnifies them later. It is very easy to hide things over the Internet, so I think face-to-face relationships are probably much healthier in the long run.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that online dating could be a legitimate tool if used to initiate a relationship, but without having significant face time with another person it has to be more difficult to truly build a healthy and honest relationship. When you are around another person in an informal setting you can observe many types of verbal and nonverbal signals to give you more information about the person. With a relationship primarily built over an electronic medium you are lacking that extra bit of information. It might seem like a small piece of the puzzle, but you can tell a lot about a person's sincerity just by observing how they say something, whereas e-mails and other forms of electronic communication are misinterpreted on a daily basis because of the difficulty in interpreting straight text.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the opinion that online dating can cause serious strains on relationships. The reason why i agree with this is because whether we like it our not, people lie, and when trying to form a relationship with somebody, it's easier to lie through the computer rather than face to face. This leads into the fact that if people lie on the computer, they're probably going to keep lying to the person they're trying to form a relationship with because they want that person to like them and they want that person to think that they're perfect. Well, everybody's not perfect and it's through our flaws that makes us all unique. Confident is key when starting new relationships, and for online relationships, telling to truth is important as well as confidence. You are who you are and it's whether or not you have the confidence to like who you are that will define whether or not you're going to have a healthy relationship.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it's very easy to avoid sharing things about yourself with people online. It's very easy to avoid peeling back that onion and sharing those layers of yourself. It's true that it may make you look better as far as self-representation goes; However, I don't think it's beneficial for relationships to avoid sharing that information. It's proven in social penetration theory that self-disclosure is a key feature in building intimate relationships, so without self-disclosure, you miss building those strong relationships. It's important that even in online relationships, you share the truth about yourself and develop the same relationships you would face-to-face.
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