Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Cyberbullying: The Cancer of CMC

Computer-mediated communications is a very fast, convenient, and reliable way to communicate with your friends and family.  Through CMC, it’s so much easier to stay connected with your old high school buddies and network with your new-found friends.  Unfortunately, with the benefits of CMC come the drawbacks, and although the benefits of CMC are many, the drawbacks are also numerous.  

Most of the drawbacks of CMC are just relative annoyances.  Trolling is defined as “Intentionally disrupting an online community.” Scroll through youtube comments or any web forum/social media site/website comment section and you’ll see examples of trolling.  Most trolling, while very annoying, is relatively harmless, consisting of comments such as  “Beyonce sucks d--k” on the Beyonce music video on Youtube or “ur a loser” on a web discussion forum.  Unfortunately, hate speech is also featured prominently on trolling activity, as hate speech, although legally protected, is socially frowned upon in face-to-face activity, and as a result many people retreat online to let loose their true feelings about specific groups, ethnicities, sexual orientations, etc.

Apart from having your feelings hurt by a troll however, there are other much darker aspects of computer mediated communications.  Cyberbullying, defined as willful and repeated harm inflicted through phones and computers, is a very real and harmful problem of CMC.  Cyberbullying may range from teasing texts to harassing a user’s profile, in which comments such as “Go kill yourself” or “No one likes you” are often posted against the victim.  While the conventional schoolyard bully can only hurt you during school hours and you’d be safe once you got home, the cyberbully can hurt you at all hours of the day, through simply logging on to Facebook or writing a quick text.  Despite many high-profile suicides in recent years due to cyberbullying, the laws for cyberbullying vary in each state, and there is still no clear precedent for cyberbullying in a court of law.  

Consider the tragic case of Megan Meier.  Megan Meier was a 13-year old teenage girl in Missouri who suffered from ADD, depression, and had self-esteem issues with her body weight. After opening an account on MySpace in 2006, she quickly befriended a guy named “Josh Evans”, and quickly became infatuated with him, constantly messaging back-and-forth with him.  On October 16, 2006, the relationship Megan had with Josh Evans took a horrible turn, as Josh abruptly ended the online relationship and shared some of Megan’s private messages with other, and private bulletins were posted of her.  Megan committed suicide after receiving messages from Josh Evans such as “You are a bad person and everyone hates you.” and “The world would be a better place without you.”

It was later discovered that Megan’s neighbor Lori Drew, her daughter Sarah, and one of Lori’s employees named Ashley Grills were responsible for setting up the Josh Evans account and mercilessly harassing Megan.  Megan had reportedly had a falling out with Sarah, and Sarah’s mother’s retribution was the cause of Megan’s tragic suicide.  Unfortunately, none of those responsible for the horrid cyberbullying that led to Megan’s tragic death were ever held responsible, as Lori Drew was convicted on charges of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which she was later acquitted on.

The suicides of Megan Meier and many others demonstrate a cold, sobering reality: although computer mediated communications is an amazing way to connect with old friends and make new ones, and is a quick and efficient way to communicate with others, computer mediated communications is not without its dangers.  The trolls you see on youtube comments and web forums may annoy the ever-loving shit out of you, but in this new age of computers and online communications, the bullies who used to taunt you in the schoolyard has moved on to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.  When you once had the comfort of knowing that the bully would be gone once you reached the safety of your own house, today you can log onto your Facebook page and the bully will be there, harassing you on your Facebook comments, texting you hurtful words at all hours of the day, and even worse, there is no clear guarantee that the law will protect you from a cyberbully.  Although computer mediated communications will go down as one of the most important advances of technology in mankind, cyberbullying is like a cancer that is casting its shadow over CMC, leaving some users emotionally harmed and leading others to physically hurt themselves, and something must be done about this.

Cyber-stalking

You view their page everyday, you go through all of their comments, you go through their friends list, you've read all of their post and you've seen all of their pictures. I think we all are guilty or know someone who does this kind of surveillance and persistent behaviors. You or that person you know haven't entered the cyber-creeps category until these questions are answered:

Do you know this person?
Does this person know you ?
What is your relationship with this person, if one exists?
If they were to find out about these behaviors would they be comfortable?

If the answer to all the questions were yes, you are officially a cyber-creep. A cyber-creep is a fun word I made up to represent a low-level of stalking, that isn't harmful or unwanted, unlike cyber-stalking. After learning about cyber-stalking in class, I was a bit worried that I was a cyber-stalker, to the point where I ended up telling my boyfriend that I stalk his Instagram profile. Comforting enough, his response was that he does the same on my profile but this behavior isn't always consented. For instance, if the answer to the above questions were no, that would be crossing the line.
 
Technology and social networks have been diminishing privacy since becoming a key player in our society. Just because someone accepts you into their social network circle of friends doesn't mean that this behavior is okay. Some people feel it isn't considered stalking unless they reach out to you, and harass. Being that we are still adjusting to this new aspect of life there isn't a set definition nor official laws regarding it. According to "Tech Target Network", Cyber stalking is a crime in which the attacker harasses a victim using electronic communication, such as e-mail or instant messaging (IM), or messages posted to a Web site or a discussion group. A cyberstalker relies upon the anonymity afforded by the Internet to allow them to stalk their victim without being detected. Cyberstalking messages differ from ordinary spam in that a cyberstalker targets a specific victim with often threatening messages, while the spammer targets a multitude of recipients with simply annoying messages.
 
Cyber stalking can range from all of the actions mentioned in this picture
 
Technology has a lot of negative effects, it exposes children to online predators and makes cyber bullying possible. It also provides information that increases the risk of identity theft and stalking, there's just a lot of personal information laid out there due to technology. Just like regular stalking, you can't control that it might happen to you. But there are ways to prevent it like privacy settings, caution of what you share and by not allowing anyone you don't know into your social networks. Many believe cyberstalking is just a female problem or concern but just about anyone can be targeted. According to statistics from WHOA, Working to Halt Abuse Online, a foundation geared to fight harassment online, 21 percent of victims are men.
 
In fact a couple was targeted by a man recently who is now in custody for sending them threatening emails and constant phone calls. You can read more about it here: Man charged with cyberstalking couple.

Cross-Sex Friendships

Anna Hernandez
CAS 283 




There is always those girls that you can point out that have more guy friends than girl friends. Their reasoning is always something of the effect like, “ I just get along better with guys, girls are too complicated”. Or they may say that girls find her threatening so they typically don’t like her. So while covering the topic of Cross sex friendships, we looked at the pros and cons of that matter and evaluated if this type of relationship was possible. Some of the challenges stated in class were, “sexual challenge”, meaning that sex would always play a role for at least one member of the relationship; “equality challenge”, meaning that men and women are perceived differently in different environments; and “public presentation”, meaning there are always those people who constantly ask if you are just friends. I, like many other girls, have encountered these challenges through cross sex friendships. In high school I was constantly spotted hanging out with one of my guy friends, just the two of us, in the city and the next day I would have to hear rumors and gossip about how we liked each other or how I was “playing” the guy or leading him on and it became frustrating. I identified how my image may look, but I knew that my friend and I both had an understanding of what the relationship really was. I do agree however that the sexual challenge did become a problem for me in many of my friendships. Usually it was the guy who would start to catch feelings, but luckily enough for me, we were good enough friends to where we can talk about it and address it so that it wouldn't become problematic. In the article, “ Cross- Sex Friendships: Hazardous to your Health?”, It describes how these relationships are essentially beneficial. One claim is  that having cross- sex friendships can give you a different perspective on the world that someone of the same sex may not. “Given that girls tend to co-ruminate more than boys, having male friends to “balance them out” in theory would enhance girls’ mental health”( Dr. Selterman. Science of relationships). In Psychology Today, it states that, “Friendship, especially between a woman and a man, is one of those relationships that has no well-defined script: each friendship has to define its own rituals and routines, its own cache of meanings, and its own symbols of exchange. As a result, people outside the friendship read their own meanings into it. But while friends themselves tend to be subtle and creative in building the relationship, outsiders' guesswork tends to be pretty crude”(Terri Apter Ph.D. on Nov 18, 2008 in Domestic Intelligence). So as complicated as Cross- sex friendships can be, it is certainly ones that can be maintained. Stated in class is the fact that is it in our biological nature to be trained to look for mates or view males as so. This explains why sex initially becomes problematic. Especially if a male and a female are good friends, there is trust, and there is positive reinforcement,there is no doubt that one of the two in the relationships would see it as more than a friendship. I believe that if you initially set some ground rules and communicate early in the relationship what the intentions are, that it can make it less complicated throughout. 

Friday, March 27, 2015

Photoshop

There has been an incredible advancement within the field of technology.  Photoshop has changed the way we use all of our social networks. Photoshop has allowed us to be able to change a fat, ugly, greasy, scary woman into a super model. This can be a problem for people who are looking to meet or date individuals on a social media. Can you imagine walking to a particular location in the hopes of meeting the super model you thought you were talking to online and then coming to see a fat old lady with roses and a huge smile with fake gums. This has allowed people on social media to overcome their insecurities while online. Almost everyone that uses social medias use photoshop in some sort of manner whether they realize it or not.
Kim Kardashian Before/After Photoshop
Here is a picture of Kim Kardashian who is viewed as one of the most gorgeous women on the planet. If you notice any differences you will notice they shaved a bit of her fat off, took the blemishes out of her thighs, made her legs more slim and in shape, and also made her breast slightly bigger. This just goes to show everyone feels the need to photoshop their pictures. This picture can be seen in this article.

This can become a serious problem when people who are considered serial killers use this piece of technology to lure in victims. We have also seen things like being used in the world by people for the means of killing an individual. This is why these sort of advancements in technology can be scary or a problem for those who online date.  This is also why many people have been "catfished". "Catfished  is someone who pretends to be someone they're not using Facebook or other social media to create false identities, particularly to pursue deceptive online romances".

This has also been a great advancement in the field of technology for the purposes of photography and filming. The photo of Kim Kardashian has also allowed her to receive some financial income. It also brings in revenue for the creator of photoshop, the photographer and everyone else involved in the photoshoot. It has changed the way we view films in theater and also on our televisions within our home. It has been used for models and the way we perceive their image. The article above can tell you about the pros and cons of using photoshop. Be careful with the things we see through the media because we may never know the real truth behind it. 

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Catfished!

During the 2012 college football season, Manti Te’o had perhaps the most heartbreaking and inspirational story of all.  A talented linebacker at Notre Dame, Te’o was the leader of the team, both vocally and through example, and his bone-crushing defensive play on the football field was leading the Notre Dame football team to greater heights.  At the same time, many news outlets reported on the heart-wrenching story of Te’o’s girlfriend Lennay Kekua, who was battling Leukemia and died in a car-accident, and that Te’o drew inspiration for his remarkable season from Kekua, whom he had promised that he would play even if something had happened to her.  This story captivated America, making many teary-eyed and contributing partly to Te’o finishing second in the Heisman trophy vote.  The only problem? It was later found that Lennay Kekua never existed, and that Te’o had been catfished on the internet by a man named Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, who was in love with Manti Te’o.  Manti Te’o quickly became the butt of jokes about being catfished and having fake girlfriends, unfortunately overshadowing his football prowess.  

Being catfished is defined by the ever-reliable Urban Dictionary as “Having a relationship of any sort with someone on social media who isn’t who they say they are, by using someone else’s pictures or living a totally different lifestyle than what they told you.”  These days, being catfished is a huge problem for dating sites, and with the rise of casual “hookup” apps such as tinder and hot or not, more and more internet users are falling victim to being catfished.  

Tinder is one such “hookup” app.  Currently the most downloaded dating app on both the Apple and Android app stores, Tinder is an app that uses the user’s current location to find potential matches from a radius of 1 to 100 miles depending on the user’s preference, and users look through a number of member profiles available in their radius, swiping left if the user finds the profile unattractive, and right if the user likes the profile/finds the profile attractive.  If you swipe right to someone on tinder and he/she also swipes right, then you two will be “matches” and gain the ability to chat with one another.  In theory, you will be able to get to know someone on tinder and if it all works out, to meet up with him/her, arranging all this through chat.  Unfortunately, this also makes it incredibly easy to catfish people.  

Tinder has been deluged with a flood of tinder users who use tinder to troll other unfortunate users who happened to match with them.  In an article on the online newspaper The Daily Dot oh-so-creatively titled “The Fine Art of Trolling Horny Guys on Tinder”, a woman named Emily Miller would swipe right to a ton of guys on tinder, and message her matches a bunch of seductive messages implying that she wanted to “get it on.” Predictably, the guys would respond back attempting to take advantage of that offer, and she would end up unmatching them after getting their hopes up with false promises of getting laid.  

Not only are there people who catfish on tinder and other dating sites/apps for sport, there are also those who do it for an emotional connection but feel the need to change their own identity.  One notable example of this type of catfish is depicted in the 2010 documentary Catfish, in which a young man named Nev Schulman fell in love with a beautiful young woman over Facebook, only to discover that he had been falling for a middle-aged woman the entire time after some in-depth research.  Oftentimes, these serious catfishes use fake pictures of attractive young people but also include some real information to draw their helpless victims in, causing a lot of emotional connection and then pain and distress when the victim figures out what is going on.  Even worse is when the catfish cons you into giving him/her money or other possessions.  

It turns out that some of the users on tinder aren’t even human.  An article by the Huffington Post reported that multiple attendees at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas matched with an attractive “woman” named Ava on Tinder.  After a highly philosophical conversation where she asked matches questions such as “What makes you human”, matches who “passed her test” were sent a link to her instagram, which consisted of a short clip from the film Ex Machina.  It turns out the profile of “Ava” was actually a marketing stunt for the film Ex Machina, which tells the story of Ava, an eerily human robot.  Fittingly, the tinder profile was that of Ava from the film, and the tinder users had been talking to a robot the entire time!  

In recent years, smartphone dating apps such as Tinder and Hot or Not have become quite popular.  Although they are “casual dating sites” and are supposedly very good for hook ups, catfishes, both casual and hardcore, run rampant, and the attractive young woman you are currently messaging on Tinder might even be a robot.  All in all, online dating.  Despite all the safeguards dating sites use to prevent catfishing, most notably Tinder requiring you to use your Facebook profile on the app, these safeguards on internet dating sites are so easy to circumvent.  All you have to do is create a Facebook profile with pictures from Google images, and you’ll be swiping around in no time.  All in all, online dating sites are not a viable way to date or hook up, as the likelihood of being catfished on these sites is far too big.

Sources:
http://www.dailydot.com/lol/how-to-lose-a-guy-in-one-tinder-interview/


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2264053/Catfishing-The-phenomenon-Internet-scammers-fabricate-online-identities-entire-social-circles-trick-people-romantic-relationships.html

Friday, March 6, 2015

The Ugly Truth of Online Dating

Blake Johnson
CAS 283 Spring' 15



Why do people lie about themselves online? The author of the article “The Ugly Truth of Online Dating: Top 10 Lies Told by Internet Daters” decided to do a survey to investigate what are the most common deceptions by people when attempting to use online dating websites. We learn from our lectures that users of online dating report that the biggest fault or problem with it is the common use of deception by others in portraying themselves. People lie about numerous aspects of themselves including but not limited to, age, weight, and height. Online communication allows for people to present themselves as however they want and this causes for people to be allowed to sway the way that people present themselves to others in a beneficial or more desirable fashion.
Deception in online dating is common. Greg Hodge suggests in his article (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-hodge/online-dating-lies_b_1930053.html) that more than half of online daters lie about themselves in one way or another when resenting their profiles or messaging someone on an online dating website. “Fifty-three percent of American people surveyed said they lied in their online dating profiles. How in the world are you supposed to discover your TRUE match when what is being put out there isn't true?” Without representing yourself in a true fashion, you lose any ethos you have, as well as lessening the ethos of the online dating site. Ethos is how much credibility someone has and given how much credibility someone has, they may be adept to speak on a topic versus someone with less ethos on the topic. Lying about personal qualities or features lowers the ethos of the liar. “The Internet allows us the freedom to represent ourselves in a way we wish people would see us or the way we wish we could actually be”. “Selective Self-Perception” is another aspect to consider as to why people lie about themselves for online dating profiles. The idea is that people will play up the good and leave the rest of their aspects that are not considered necessarily good, out. This presents only the best of their qualities and therefore presents the best of that person, which is then who other interested profiles see.
The survey conducted by Greg Hodge suggests that women lie almost 10npercentage points more on online dating websites than men. The survey compared the top 10 lies men used when online dating versus the top 10 lies by females when online dating. The top lie by men was that their jobs were better than they actually were, while the top lie for females was that they were lighter than they actually were. The second top lie for females was about them being younger than they were. Women tended to post older pictures of themselves when they were younger to their profiles. “The obvious problem here? Most of these are lies their dates can spot in the first few seconds of seeing them. In fact, a third of those surveyed said they falsified their information so much that it prevented them from getting a second date.” This causes the authenticity of the online dating site and online dating as a whole to lose credibility as people realize the obvious possibilities of deception becoming realities.

In lectures we learn that the longer people interact online without having taking the relationship offline and meeting face to face, the easier it is for the relationship to diminish. “More unmet expectations the longer couples are online prior to moving offline”. This suggests that people want to meet with their online counterparts as fast as possible. This causes them to attempt to project their best first impressions as well as best of themselves overall to gain the attention of other profiles seeking in the quickest manner. Greg ends the article by stressing the importance of accurately depicting oneself in an online profile. Eventually to be satisfying the relationship must continue from online into the real world where the deceptions you have made online will eventually come to the light regardless. So in the end you’ll only be hurting yourself.

Online Dating Gone Wrong





Raking in millions of dollars in subscriptions annually and slowly taking over the internet are online dating sites. With our increased reliance on technology and lack of motivation to meet random people in public, our society has made a hard shift to the use of online interaction to try and find a life partner. Since the beginning, there has been a steady influx of these sites, many of which are not well regulated or even close to what a real dating site should consist of. It is within these "walls" that we see an influx of the dark side of not only online interactions, but the real life consequences that accompany them.

Many people have seen the tv show "Catfish" or at least heard the term before. If you haven't, it describes a person who leads another person on in a strictly online relationship. In cases like these, the perpetrator creates an entirely fictitious person that the victim falls for and becomes invested in. These people have never met face to face and may have never even heard the others voice. This is what I would consider on the low end of the dark side of online dating. While it may hurt the victim mental or emotionally, there isn't any real life harm done and law enforcement is seldom involved.

As we progress up the scale, you can come across some very interesting characters within the online world. There are those with ridiculous fetishes or those hungry for power and control or those whom would sooner assault their "romantic partner" than listen to a grievance. Above catfishers would have to be sociopaths. They are those "perfect" profiles just surfing, stalking, and targeting those individuals who seem lonely and able to be easily taken advantage of. Sociopaths are those people who seem to have just a little too much in common with you, most likely because they adjusted their profile to match, hoping for an easier pickup. Once you're hooked, you get carried away into a fast paced relationship in which you're encouraged to quickly give out personal details like phone number or accepting a friend request on Facebook. These people are strictly here to manipulate and take advantage of others.


We now move to the worst part of the spectrum. A combination of sociopath, catfisher, and outright criminal. In an article from huffington post, we catch a glimpse of the truly dark side of people. It goes without saying that online dating can be risky and should be taken at a slower more careful pace than in the real world, but even so, there is always that chance of finding that one wack-job who is missing a few brain synapses or has been through a very difficult, untraditional life. In the story, a man, Gilles, found a “perfect match,” which leads back to the sociopath side. But when Gilles went to meet for the first time, it turns out he was outright catfished, because “she” was a “he” and he was wearing a hockey mask and tried to attack Gilles. It turns out, Gilles got pretty lucky, because a short time in the future, it was reported that a man was murdered and the same mask was recovered from the scene. At this point, Gilles stepped forward and told his story, and with his help, the police caught the aspiring serial killer.

Now, you probably have a better chance of winning the lottery than you do of this happening, because it is definitely the worst case scenario, but this also isn’t the first instance of murder, kidnapping, or other nefarious acts performed with the help of online dating sites.

#helpful?


Hashtags are all over twitter, for example in my last tweet I had #pens (for the Pittsburgh Penguins) attached to the end.  The hashtag allows anyone else to see it, due to the fact that twitter can search for words hashtagged and group them together. 

 

With the power to group similar tweets together, it was only a matter of time until trends to appear, whether it be about something related towards pop culture (#Grammys2015 for example) to a big sporting event (#Daytona500), or anything in between! People also started to turn towards hashtags to come together to support a cause, often taking the internet by storm.  These crazes calling for justice are called Hashtag Activism or #activism.

 

Often bringing awareness to a cause, #activism is generally viewed as a positive thing among those who tweet for a cause on a consistent basis, but are they truly doing anything?  When was the last time a hashtag directly saved a life, donated to charity, or found a cure for a disease? The answer is… never. So if it is not directly making an impact, why do many consider it as a good thing?

 

Typical answers among those survived were “it raises awareness” or “shut up I donated”

 

So in reality #activism raises awareness.  It allows others to get in touch with the cause, which in turn can lead to more donations or someone who has more money or more power to do something that an average person cannot do.

 

The other problem facing the credibility of #activism is that often people use the hashtag in a joking (often dark matter) or just use the hashtag to get more favorites, retweets, and followers.  For example, when the #likeagirl was trending after the Super Bowl –to spread gender equality and to end using “like a girl” as a negative statement—there were multiple people using it to demean women, and even a similar hashtag #likeaboy was invented.  Many found this demeaning, and called out those who used these hashtags. 

 

Another example of #activism gone array due to the hashtag being used in the improper way was #blacklivesmatter after the Ferguson police officer wound up not being sent to court for shooting Mike Brown.  Many started using the hashtag just to look better, and often used it incorrectly.

 

All in all, #activism can be good if used correctly and if it leads to action being taken, but for the most part it fails, therefore it is #almosthelping. 


http://www.westernjournalism.com/hashtag-activism/#REhuYyTYfPwYfTIU.97

 

Rewards and Cost of the Social Penetration Theory

An interesting concept that was talked about in lecture is the social penetration theory. This theory was formulated by two psychologist named, Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor.  The theory states that interpersonal communication changes over time. Relationships start from non-intimate and shallow conversations and change into a deeper conversation.  The onion analogy is used with this theory because as you start to dive deeper into conversations you peel back the different layers of who the person is, like an onion. People in general have these different layers to their personality which are revealed depending on who the person is talking too. Their more prone to reveal different levels of their personality depending on the rewards and costs. Rewards and costs are dependent on the person their communicating with. If someone feels they will be liked more, which is a reward to some, they will choose to reveal deeper information about who they are as a person. However, if the person feels vulnerable they might choose to disclose personal information. The journal article I found relating to this concept is by Jih-Hsin Tang and Chen-Chung Wang. The article, “Self-Disclosure Among Bloggers: Re-Examination of Social Penetration Theory, talks about a study done with Taiwanese bloggers and how much they disclose on their blog. They found that most bloggers, “seem to express their interest and experiences more often than private information, such as financial matters.” It seems they would rather express more intimate information to their best friends rather than their parents and online audience.  One of the reasons why is because of how information on the internet is permanent and can be easily recorded compared to talking to someone face to face. When comparing this to my life, I totally agree what is being stated in the journal article. Especially, when talking about communicating with best friends and parents online. My parents live overseas so right now I’m by myself in State college. I disclose more information to my best friends than I do with my parents. I believe the reason why I do this is because I don’t want my parents to worry. Furthermore, when talking to my friends I feel its easier to talk to them because of their support doesn’t cause them any distress. My parents support me a lot, but making them worry about my hard times at school is more of a cost than a reward. When talking to friends I always receive replies saying not to worry because they know I can overcome the obstacles I face during my time here. They aren’t going to be as worried as my parents who would do anything for me if I asked. The support I receive from my friends is a reward because they don’t have to worry about me. On the other hand telling my parents of these hardships would be more of a cost because it would cause them distress worrying about me being in a different country. It’s interesting applying the social penetration theory to online communication because it definitely changes what people disclose when communicating with different people.
Link:

Stranger Danger: The dangers of online dating

The internet has progressed and continues to progress as time passes. The internet is a place where people can meet and communicate with each other. Whether they are in two completely different locations or the same location, the internet has helped us communicate as if we are right next to each other. The internet has also been constructed in a way where people can date online. The internet can be helpful but it can also be dangerous when it comes to online dating. People face many different types of dangers when they are associated with online dating because this world is filled with people who only want to cause damage to other innocent people. Online dating is dangerous because anyone can create a false profile that makes other people believe they are real but then lead to major letdowns. Predators and criminals also use these sites to find victims, especially because these sites portray themselves as a trusting.

The articles that I found this week all discuss about the dangers of online dating. Three of the articles discuss how dangerous online dating can be and provide tips on how to be aware of these dangers. One article in particular discusses an incident where a women was almost killed by a suitor she found on an online dating site.

There are many online dating sites such as Match.com, eHarmony.com, ChristianMingle.com, and many more. And unfortunately these sites are full of people who have created a false profile for themselves. These fake profiles can be extremely dangerous because the people behind these profiles can be rapists, sex offenders, and criminals but are disguising themselves as innocent, regular people. When it comes to online dating, criminals or predators take advantage because they feel that online dating sites are bursting with victims they can harm. They create a fake profile that can take about 5 minutes to make and soon enough they are searching the site looking for a gullible victims they can put their hands on. Match.com was sued for $10 million by Mary Kay Beckman, Beckman met Wade Ridley online and Wade had the intentions to kill Beckman but failed to do so. In actual fact, Wade Ridley confessed to have killed a woman named Anne Simenson, who he had met on Match.com. This is just one heinous example of the many criminals that are out there using these online dating sites as bait to catch unsuspecting victims.

One reason that I believe people continue to use these online dating site is because of the skewed advertising that we see.  Very often on television we see online dating advertisements, and there is always at least two couples who have met and been married due to the success they’ve found on a specific site. The commercial only says that the couple has met and has been married for a certain amount of time but how do we as the viewers know if that is true? We choose to believe this probably because we see it on television. But of course these online dating advertisements don’t speak about the possible dangers that can happen because of the risk of losing money and trust. These online dating advertisements are filled with lies and deceit and it is unfortunate that people get hurt, killed, or disappointed as result and these advertisements do not responsibly convey everything about the site to the viewers.

 While it may be difficult to come up with complete solutions to prevent these online dating dangers there are precautions that one take to be more aware and careful. There are many things that these companies can do to protect their users from these dangers. In both articles (“Tips for online dating” and “Raising awareness of online dating dangers”) the authors are really helpful in providing tips. Some tips include using a reputable site, using anonymous email accounts, not giving out your home address, following your gut, and making sure that all meeting locations are in public areas.

Personally the thought of online dating creeps me out. I’m not particularly open to the idea simply because I have trust issues when it comes to meeting complete strangers. I feel like there are too many horror stories and informative literature out there for me to ever be trusting of someone I’ve met online. I do think that all of the articles provided a great insight into the monstrous world of online dating and they were extremely helpful to me. 

Articles: 
                 Tips for online dating

Influential Power of Adolescent Friendship



Coulter Ebbert

The teenage years of a person’s life can quite possibly be some of the most difficult. Between the awkward transition from child to adult, finding one’s identity, and trying to fit in with friends, being a teenager was difficult enough in the past. Now with the emergence of instantaneous communications and social media it must be more challenging than ever to navigate through middle school. As this article from the Los Angeles times suggests, the adolescent teenage years (specifically middle school years) are when teenagers are most impressionable. Possibly the largest factor which influences these young teenagers are their friend groups and the relationships they have with them. In the article written by Valerie Ulene, an emphasis is placed on the positive or negative influence friends can have on teenagers. The author sites a study published in February 2011 by the Journal of Early Adolescence in which more than 1200 middle school students were surveyed. In the survey each student was asked to identify whom they consider their three best friends. The researchers found that those students who identified three best friends who were prone to misbehave and perform poorly in class were likely to do the same, while those students with friends who participated in sports and did well in school typically reflected the same studious and responsible behavior. The article also goes on to give advice to parents on how to help their children through these tremulous years. The article suggests that parents should aid in helping their child secure their sense of identity through positive means. They advise that forbidding an “unhealthy” relationship could be detrimental to the parent and child relationship and give cause to rebellion on the child’s part. The article suggests that parents who are having difficulties with their child should restrict the hang out time of the child to the parent’s terms, only allowing the teens to hang out under supervision and restricting the child from going out at night. Though these measures seem as though they should be used only if a parent is having extreme concern for their child, not all should be so stringent. Being one who has a 14 year old sister and a 12 year old brother, I can speak from experience when saying, in my opinion, that this article is absolutely correct in its aspects of the influence a teen gets from their friend group. My sister, who is a fantastic and caring little girl (she would kick my ass if she found out I called her a little girl), has gone through a noticeable change throughout the past few years of middle school. Granted it is partially due to her becoming older but I believe a large part is due to the friends she associates herself with (I call them the mean girls). The article finishes up by reassuring its readers that this vital stage of vulnerability only lasts for a few years and by the time teenagers reach high school they are much more independent and less susceptible. For a good read and perhaps to learn something check out the article.

Online Dating- a Good Idea?

Online dating may in fact be the future of dating. For better or worse, millions of people are joining large online dating sites such at Match.com or Zoosk. With record numbers of a one in three people finding their spouses online, according to the Huffington post, online dating is here to stay. It is convenient, cheap, and at least ten times cleaner than meeting a girl at a frat party. While web surfing for your new babe from behind a computer screen may be attractive, that is not even the best part. A study performed on people who have met their significant other through the means of a dating website shows that their marriages are happier on average, and that they have a lower divorce rate. Part of my theory on why this may be is the ability to create your self with confidence online, knowing that you will not be judged, or separated, which may not often be the case in real life.
These dating websites have even tailored their designs to fit almost every type of attraction an individual could want. We now have black people meet (.com), single farmers meet (.com), gluten free singles, meet an inmate, hot sauce passions (for those who enjoy chili peppers), and Amish singles meet. There are plenty more hilarious dating websites that are only a Google search away, but that is not my point.  The point is that people are more comfortable putting themselves on display through their computers, rather than in person. This may be because if a person logs on to one of these websites, they are guaranteed what they are looking for, and they know they are in the right place. Already having something in common with a person who you are trying to build a relationship is a solid start. Now that we have access to all of these dating websites, a person can be as strange as they naturally are, and find a person that truly fits their personality. This will come as a relieve to those who have struck out with the ladies in the actual world, because instead of changing themselves, they can create a profile, and without any fear of rejection let everybody else scan their details from their own computers.
If the marriages are more secure from dating websites, how the website does it does not seem to matter. Divorce rates are higher than ever in the United States, and if people claim that they are more satisfied from meeting that special someone online, and sticking with them, more power to them. In the article it was also noted that people tend to be more honest with people, while online. This may contribute in a big way towards the future relationship, and give it a strong base to build upon. I personally have broken the hearts of many women while claiming to be a surgeon. Maybe if I were online with a wider pool of women, I could be more honest and just tell them who I truly am. If you have any question about my paper you can reach me on meetsingledoctors.com, username DoctorKeats.



Sources: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/04/online-dating-leads-to-hi_n_3384721.html