The Internet's Impact on the Dating World

The article “Digital Dating and Virtual Relating: Conceptualizing Computer Mediated Romantic Relationships” talks about the internet’s “striking evolution from its modest beginnings in the 1960s as a medium to connect academic institutions and eventually American defensive facilities in the event of war.” “What was once understood as a valuable component of American national security has blossomed into an international social microcosm, where online communities are created, social networks thrive, business transactions occur, future marital partners are found…” (Wysocki). The internet has truly changed, or evolved, from what it was first meant to be. It can accomplish so much more than what was originally thought.

The article’s main point is to show the different ways that technology is influencing how people relate to one another in building romantic relationships. Also, the article introduces computer mediated relationships, or CMRs, by providing the history of the internet, explaining the difference between CMRs and face-to-face relationships, explaining the trouble that practitioners might have with this new generation of relationships and things they need to look for, and it suggests that further research be done on the topic. The author supports the claim about practitioners by stating, “family professionals should be aware that those who primarily engage in CMR may lack the life skills necessary to maintain a long-term face-to-face or marital relationship” (Merkle 2000). The claim about the history of the internet it supported by the facts stated about the Cold War and by telling that, in the year the article was published, more than half of the households in the US had at least one computer in their homes. The statement, “…it is probably not surprising that, in many respects, such relationships [CMR’s] could be viewed as being at variance with the face-to-face relationship because they represent a developmental and behavioral sequence far removed from customary methods of finding attraction and intimacy with another person.” supports the claim about face-to-face relationships and CMRs. Some quotes that I think will be beneficial to me in the future are:

“As Western society continues to accelerate its pace, free time becomes more of a scarcity, and individuals strive to balance multiple roles and responsibilities, people are finding themselves thrust into a position where they must find non-conventional avenues for social interaction such as the Internet” (Merkle 1999).

“Relationships that previously were established and sustained primarily through face-to-face interaction have come to be complemented by a social technology that is creating a new genre of interpersonal relationships.”

and

“Americans are, in general, a very affable people who are among the most technology-loving cultures in the world. Because of this mutual interest in technology and socializing, he believes that American Internet users have exploited the Internet (as well as other modern technological devices) as a social medium as much as a technological innovation.”

Merkle, E. R. and Richardson, R. A. (2000), Digital Dating and Virtual Relating:

Conceptualizing Computer Mediated Romantic Relationships. Family Relations, 49: 

187–192. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-3729.2000.00187.x

Merkle, E. R. (1999) Romance in the era of technology: An examination of the effects of

propinquity and self-disclosure on intimacy within computer mediated relationships. Unpublished master's thesis. Kent State University.

Wysocki, D. K. (1998) Let your fingers do the talking: Sex on an adult chatline. 

Sexualities, 1, 425–452.