Jake Young is a 
I am going to start a category for the random, stupid things people believe you can get addicted to. Here is a good one: internet dating.
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.
1) Dating itself can lead to "multiple relationship failures." In fact, being in your 20s and single is in my experience one continuous relationship failure. We need not blame the Internet for that.
2) Yeah, we wouldn't want people to get huge heads and believe that someone out there might want to sleep with them. That would suck.
3) Again, I don't think we need to blame the Internet for women (or men for that matter) forming "emotional attachments to unsuitable people." We were doing just fine in that area pre-Internet, and the prospects of turning our personal lives into a continuing roadshow of shocking travesty are looking bullish in the future.
Brain & Behavior
Comments
but look, you're wrong!
online dating helps people's feelings get crushed more efficiently:
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/online_dating_helping_pathetic
Posted by: co-blogger kate | May 23, 2008 4:37 PM
besides, if internet sex addictions can allegedly be cured by administering an opiate antagonist, perhaps internet dating addictions can be similarly treated.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18241634?ordinalpos=19&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
Posted by: co-blogger kate | May 23, 2008 4:42 PM
The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future.
Posted by: razib | May 27, 2008 2:29 AM
We'd love to get your feedback! We recently started an Online Dating Forum and would be interested in hearing about your experiences.
Please feel free to share your any internet dating services you are using - or may have used in the past. Hopefully, your feedback will help others choose the right dating services and help them avoid mistakes when it comes to online dating.
Posted by: Vanessa M | July 22, 2008 1:37 AM
I believe that online dating thing is something that would help people go out of their shells.
Not all people can express themselves openly and what is inside them (sadly a lot had a lot of trash within.)This actually serves as a vent and in a way boosts up one's self esteem. It is something that would also serve as a defense mechanism to air out inner feelings in a legal means called 'sublimation' rather than end up insane because of unexpressed emotions and point of views.
A balance has to be made.The attention and the replies is very nice and elating but in reality it's not always the same.
If people in reality can't just hide what's in their mind and constrained by self-preservation from embarassment and the fear of being misunderstood, don't you think people will actually act as they are online?Hmmmm...
Posted by: Janice Cruz | October 11, 2008 9:03 AM
Oh' I musn't forget... Airing out one's surging emotions, frustrations and fears is one of the best things in life. It actually alleviates a person's perception of pain and helps one in handling self-preservation and survival.
Life is but a matter of facing it with the right attitude. To air out one's self is one of the sweetest thing that can happen. Don't you think?
Posted by: Janice Cruz | October 11, 2008 9:16 AM