In today’s world, online dating is quickly becoming the new craze
in dating. In fact, online dating has gone from the taboo, last resort option
to a dating alternative that is responsible to close to 1 in 3 marriages
occurring today. No longer do people have to cleverly hide how they met their
partner "in line at Starbucks" but rather that they met on sites as
OKCupid or Eharmony. However, while many people today are capitalizing on the
benefits and conveniences of online dating, there are the few who wish to
misuse it for their own agendas. And it is these people that ultimately are
causing harm and doubt in today's online dating world.
As described by the article I read this
week, Catfishing: Truth about Deception Online, a catfish is a person who
intentionally deceives another through the use of a social media site. However,
even the term catfish is a broad spectrum describing a wide array of people
online. Some are simple lies, such as people engaging in self- selective
presentation by slightly altering little details about their selves. But some
can be huge, elaborate schemes where others completely change things about their
selves, or even make a false identity. For example from a popular TV
show, in How I Met Your Mother, one of the characters named Barney comes up
with an elaborate scheme to pick up girls at the bar. Before going to the
bar, he spent countless hours writing fake online profiles and news articles
about a fictitious character named Lorenzo Von Matterhorn. Then Barney went to
the bar, saw a girl checking him out, and said yes it’s me Lorenzo Von
Matterhorn. He then gave her a few seconds of time alone for her to look up his
persona online before asking her out. And while most cases of catfishing are
not as extreme or elaborate as this, there are still quite a few that are.
So the main question comes down to this:
why are catfish so successful online? While there is no definite answer, many
are noticing different ways and breeding grounds that do aid potential catfish.
For starters, we know we all love to present our "better self"
online. We talk about ourselves, but more importantly we talk about what we
would like to do (if we have the time of course). In fact, being able to
craft your own profile is one of the most common reasons why people choose
online dating to start out. But the same reasons many people are flocking to
the online world is what is a causing some of those people to become these
catfish. A key factor of online dating is that it offers anomity, which gives
the user the knowledge they will probably never see the person they are talking
to in real life. This creates what some are calling the online disinhibition
effect, or when people use the anomity online and it causes them to have
deviate from following moral codes. It
allows the catfish to continue what they are doing, knowing they will never
meet that person. In fact, besides having the sense of pleasure of deceiving someone
it also makes fooling others into a game. Now they can have worry free fun with
each lie and see how far they can go before they are caught or the victim suspects
anything. Hence, needless to say the very reasons we love the online world are
the ones that are creating the problems we have with it.
In conclusion, the internet is becoming a key part of all facets
of human existence. However, the very things we love about the internet and
online dating are also the things that are allowing others to harm us. Catfish
are a rising problem as the internet expands, and time to get ahead of and stop
it is now. We as society need to learn more about why people feel the need to
catfish and ultimately stop it for good.
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