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May 21, 2008, 11:54 AM ET
Now There's an Internet Dating Addiction?
A researcher at Queensland University of Technology in Australia argues that perceived popularity in the online dating scene can lead to Internet dating “addiction” and multiple relationship failures.
“At first blush the person seems very popular—they might receive 200 replies so they get a lot more attention than if they had walked into bar. It gives a feeling of being powerful. The online environment doesn’t have the conventions and context of a real life meeting and so online interactions can have a bigger impact on a person. The social disinhibition that online interactions allow means some people are carried away by their feelings and don’t use their heads as they would in normal social situations when meeting people,” QUT relationships psychologist Matthew Bambling said in a news release.
He also found that online daters, particularly women, formed “emotional attachments to unsuitable people” they’d met on the Web after falling for witty lines.
“If you’ve got 300 people wanting to know you, the one who makes you laugh the most, the one who’s the cleverest and wittiest in their response, often makes the connection. It doesn’t mean they are the right person by any stretch of the imagination. It just means they’ve got some great opening lines on an email,” he told the Australian Associated Press.—Catherine Rampell
Categories: Research, Social-Networking
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