Archive for March 26th, 2007
I’ve often said that online dating is not a million miles away from job hunting. Now someone has gone that extra mile.
A woman looking for Mr Right decided not to use a dating site (because some of her friends have had bad experiences) and has posted a “job advert” for a husband on a UK job site instead. So you thought online dating was pragmatic and business-like? It’s got nothing on this. It did get her far more exposure (and press) than an ad on a dating site ever would though, so good on her. Dunno what else to say, really.
Not a good advert for online dating in the UK, but it made me laugh.
Full article on the BBC site and here’s a link to her ad
March 26th, 2007
I came across an interesting article today about the way mobile text conversations and online interaction supposedly affect teenagers’ views on relationships. By “interesting” I don’t actually mean intelligent and well thought-out, unfortunately.
Here’s an example:
Professor Doreen Rosenthal said mobiles and the internet had created an accelerating intimacy between adolescents, with many making relationship decisions more swiftly than previous generations. Electronic communication tended to shrink the time span in which friendships developed, leaving teenagers more exposed to risky decision-making.
The article seems to suggest that, as a result, teenagers get a “false sense of intimacy” and tend to sleep with each other faster than they otherwise would:
“For many teenagers, this acceleration of intimacy is occurring without the usual checks and balances of face-to-face contact. It’s a pseudo-intimacy. You don’t create genuine intimacy through these mediums.
Continue Reading March 26th, 2007
A new survey conducted in the UK by an organisation called Get Safe Online has found that only 48% of UK net users feel that it is their responsiblity to ensure their own safety online. Here’s a link to the BBC article and a pretty chart representation of most findings. Scarily enough, about 18% of the people questioned admitted to having replied to spam. Perhaps unsurprisingly, 12% said they had been victims of Internet fraud.
In a bit of good news, the UK government is actually fostering education, rather than empty measures like those being passed in the US. The people surveyed themselves seemed to be interested in being taught how to fend for themselves online, rather than rely on external measures. 78% even went as far as suggesting Internet safety lessons should be given to kids in schools.
The Get Safe Online site has a new online dating safety section meant to teach users how to use dating sites safely. It’s pretty short, but covers all the basics generally discussed in the safety sections of any decent site.
March 26th, 2007