Online dating lacks real connection

“Are you having trouble meeting attractive female Friends? Do you need help to say the right stuff?”

Poached directly from Facebook, banner ads like this have become more direct than ever. Do I want help in learning how to meet chicks? In this particular case, it would seem to depend on the importance placed on a bunch of pixels on a screen.

But in an interactive setting, what if the stuff said is the wrong stuff? How could anyone not want to learn how to maximize the impact of their stuff?

In meeting “attractive female friends”, third party assistance, especially mediated computer assistance, should only extend to R2D2.

Even if “everyone” obsesses over dating, this does not mean that an outside source is essential for getting involved.

As the average person is bombarded by 3600 advertising images daily (according to Sut Jhally, professor of Communications at the University of Massachusetts), the increase in direct approaches to commodifying human interactions can negatively affect face-to-face communication and limit perceptions of diversity.

Are attractive female friends found through specific Internet searches? The place or situation in which one might find this type of friend would seem arbitrary. Another question is why the object of interest is an “attractive female” and the subject a “how to meet them” in relation to an advertisement.

If attractive female friends are looking for someone to say the right stuff, does that imply that I should want to learn how? Would banner ads be as effective if they selected a less-obvious object of interest?

A concern with dating through computers is that a particular sense of human connection is exchanged for an image when translating human expression through a virtual environment.

A sense of disembodiment or detachment makes it difficult to develop a direct connection between people, particularly if they have no prior connection.

Digital communication is largely free from the awkward, intimidating or simply unpredictable character of face-to-face communication. But this sense of anonymous yet personal communication is less visceral than being in contact with a real person.

For example, it might appear like a serious conversation if chatting over MSN or Facebook to a friend about political unrest in Kenya. But if this friend was sitting at home, naked, save for a cowboy hat and tie, on their bathroom floor playing Freecell, it could change perceptions of the circumstance – how involved could she or he really be?

The context under which people communicate can be more obscured if mediated over a computer, ultimately altering perceptions.

While it can be easier to discuss personal ideas or experience through a program such as MSN, it can also be less connective than speaking directly to another person. It can also be easier and require less effort and work to find “attractive female friends” through the use of a computer.

Through removing difficulties perceived in meeting people, or simply making it easier to find people who can be “chosen” for communication, something vitally important is either absent or reduced.

The comfort and predictability of reading images and text is not the same as meeting a real person. As abbreviations in language can change the way that verbal and written communication is constituted (no writing exams in text-speak), the abbreviating of people through computer mediation can affect representations of real people and communicative potential.

Marketing on the Internet is one of the easiest and least expensive methods for seeking a wide audience (depending on several factors), particularly with popular topics like dating and sex.

The identity of self in cyberspace provides more freedom from the pressures of judgment than face-to-face interaction because it removes others from direct contact.

But it is not possible to develop relationships past a certain point without face-to-face interaction. People are not books, computer programs or images: effort is needed to develop relationships with other people.