Kim1

Ashleigh Kim
Professor Ogbara
English 1A
1 December 2015
The Online Dating Game
When John Gibson committed suicide, it made shocking headlines. The 56-year-old
pastor from New Orleans took his own life after the infamous website, AshleyMadison.com,
experienced a data breach that revealed the identity of its 38 million subscribers, including
himself. It was revealed that he too was a subscriber of Ashley Madison, an online dating
website available that facilitates affairs between individuals who are already married (Its slogan
is Life is Short, Have an Affair). Unable to withstand the shame that resulted from his
indiscretion, especially given the fact that he served as a moral example to the members of his
community, he took his own life. However, in light of Gibsons recent suicide, online dating has
brought to the forefront urgent questions on the relationship between online dating and morality,
virtue, choice and human nature. It begs the question: given the indulgent nature of online dating
(not just limited to a site devoted to infidelity), does it pressure its users to act in a way that is not
congruent with his or her nature? In other words, was this popular dating site a mere vehicle for
the pastors infidelity or did it actually encourage it? This event may demonstrate why the
endless number of possibilities online dating provides, is not necessarily as positive as it may
seem. As humans, who by nature, seek genuine connection with others, many have found online
dating very disappointing. Online dating has caused more harm than good because it has
overwhelms its users with the amount of options available to them, dilutes the dating experience,

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and hinders organic authentic interaction; by doing so, online dating limits commitment,
connection and morality.
There is something for everyone in the online dating world. JDate.com is specifically
designed to connect people of Jewish decent. Online dating has even gone so far as to create a
website specifically designed to connect avid weed smokers to well, other avid weed smokers.
The possibilities are endless. Overwhelming its users with options may not initially seem like a
drawback to participating in online dating. However, the research shows otherwise. Tinder, the
leading tycoon in the world of online dating, was designed to connect other singles who are
nearby by infiltrating the GPS of the users smartphones. However, as Tinder became a global
phenomenon, new features allow its users to connect to and view other users from any city in the
world. According to the interview with the founders of Tinder, Nick Bilton, journalist for the
New York Times, reports that the company boasts that Tinder, on average, matches 12 million
people and processes 12 billion swipes (swiping indicates whether you like someone or not)
daily. Despite being a free app, its estimated worth is 500 million dollars, while the estimated
worth of the second most popular dating website, match.com, is about 350 million (subscribers
pay 41 dollars a month for their services). (Online dating has provided the convenience (apps can
be accessed anywhere, anytime to Smartphone users) and the efficiency (you can match up to 30
people a minute where you can start a conversation). The bottom line here is that online dating is
very congruent with the pace of this generation and is definitely here to stay.
While online dating is a recent technology, its success lies in its ability to cater to the
specific desires of this particular generation. As the access to information became easier in the
90s, technology moved increasingly towards user control. Information was only useful if the

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user felt control over what kind of information was being shown to them. Progressively, the
internet became a place where personal information would be stored, as people began spending
more time using it. Online dating would also give users an increased sense of control over their
personal lives. Dan Slater, author of the book Love in the Time of Algorithms: What Technology
Does to Meeting and Mating, gives us context as to why Internet dating was able to rise.In the
mid 1990s, the online community was still quite small. About 5 percent of Americans had
internet access, and the majority of of them were men, (Slater 29) Slater explains. What Slater
implies, is that internet dating would only be used if users knew that their matches would be of
quality and quantity. The first online dating service to hit the mainstream was Match.com, which
still holds tremendous prominence in the online dating world today. Gary Kremen, the founder,
requested every woman he knew to make a profile in the site, it didnt have to be real, and they
didnt need to use it, but people just needed to see that there were would be a balance of ratios
amongst users. As a result of this, tt was received well. At 65,000 members in 1995, Slater
explains, was a large percentage of the few who had internet access (Slater 31).
In the year 2015, given the amount of options the user has, literally an infinite amount, it
has disoriented this generation its perceptions of love and dating. Aziz Ansari, who first gained
recognition as a comedian, author of Love in the Age of Like, a Times magazine article written
to academically articulate the world-wide phenomena of online dating while still maintaining his
humor. He asks his readers: Consider a study by the Columbia University psychologist Sheena
S. Iyengar. She set up a table at an upscale food store and offered shoppers samples of jams.
Sometimes, the researchers offered six types of jam, but other times they offered 24. When they
offered 24, people were more likely to stop in and have a taste, but they were almost 10 times

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less likely to actually buy jam than people who had just six kinds to try (Ansari 1). What Ansari
discusses is the attitude when people shop for jam. Yes, jam. If this speaks on something as
mundane as jam, it speaks volumes on the attitude of people when choosing something as
significant as a future marriage partner. At a certain point, too many options result in
disorientation. The chances of finding a successful match is extremely limited because it rests on
the assumption that people know what they want (which often times they dont) in order to
efficiently filter out undesirables. Perhaps it might go the other direction where people enter
into the world of online dating, initially believing they know what they want, but soon become
overwhelmed with the options which clouds their initial beliefs of knowing what they want. As
time goes on, walking on this tightrope proves exhausting and dissatisfying.
The amount of options that are available to online dating users inevitably dilutes the
dating experience of connection and intimacy. Nancy Sales, author of the Vanity Fair article
Tinder and the Dawn of the Dating Apocalypse, expresses, As soon as people could go
online they were using it as a way to find partners to date and have sex with. In the 90s it was
Craigslist and AOL chat rooms, then Match.com and Kiss.com. But the lengthy, heartfelt e-mails
exchanged by the main characters in Youve Got Mail (1998) seem positively Victorian in
comparison to the messages sent on the average dating app today. Ill get a text that says,
Wanna have sex? says Jennifer, 22, a senior at Indiana University Southeast, in New Albany
(Sales) Because of the prevalence of online dating and social media, there is a disconnect
between the two people; one believes that with access to anothers social media page they know
everything about that person and nothing at all at the same time. In fact, this new prevalence of
online dating perhaps isnt just diluting the idea of the date, it makes it completely obsolete. As

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I understand, the purpose of the the first date is to make a first impression and to get to know one
another, but with social media and online dating profiles, one has already created a first
impression based on his or her photos, in addition to providing a platform to get to know them.
Just by knowing the other persons full name, with a few clicks, the person can see what mutual
friends they share, what the other persons family looks like, or even photos from the vacation to
the Bahamas he or she took in 2013. Therefore, online profiles skip the first date and go straight
to the intimacy, which may explain the rampant hookup culture that Sales observes in her article.
Without the organic process of face-to-face dates as the mechanism in which two people get to
know each other, it is easy to associate and reduce the other person to just one of the many
profiles or avatars in a sea of prospects.
This is alarming. By linking the increased placed value of hookup culture (engaging in
sexual acts without monogamous commitment) as a result of Tinder, Sales implies that online
dating has shaped culture perhaps as much, if not more than culture has shaped online dating.
Kristy Best and Sharon Delmege, two sociologists and authors of the The Filtered Encounter:
Online Dating and the Problem of Filtering Through Excessive Information, seem to articulate
this notion best when they explain, Because of this situation, unique for the average dater, these
portals have become focused less intently on catching potential mates and more strongly on
filtering out unsuitable partners. The impacts of this practice are multiple, instilling a sense of
confidence in prospective singles, but also creating a burgeoning shopping culture of daters
(Best and Delmege 245-246). Online dating has began to resemble the process in which people
online shop for a new pair of Nikes. Establish your filters: something in the $35-$70 range, all
white, size 6, no laces, athletic purposes only. Once that is done, there you found your match.

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Add to cart. Oh no, these ones are cute too. Add those in the cart too and well see if the subtotal
is too much. Didnt like how they looked in person? No problem, just return and start the whole
process over again. This imagery of online shopping accurately conveys just how disposable
people have become.
When a couple moves past the first impression, past the dating phase and are finally in
the committed phase of their relationship, here is why online dating poses a threat: Slater,
whom I have previously mentioned, defines the three key ingredients to determine the strength of
a committed relationship: 1) satisfaction level (ones subjective evaluation of the relationship); 2)
investment size (such as time and effort, shared experiences and emotions, and the importance
that the relationship holds for ones identity); and 3) quality of alternatives (Slater 74). Online
dating significantly challenges two out of the three; it decreases the the investment size and
increases access to quality alternatives. In its essence, online dating is meant to decrease the
amount of time and effort one is required to find what they are looking for. Thats why it was
created. Thats why it has succeeded. However, Slater defines that both factors actually place
value into a committed relationship. When a couple meets as a result of online dating, inevitably,
their time and effort, especially within the beginning stages of their relationship, was greatly
minimized. Second, the prevalence of online dating within our culture makes it so access to the
alternatives are always just a few clicks. Best and Delmege pointed out that online dating
profiles more often than not represents the idealized version of ourselves. With photoshop and an
edit profile button, that is not surprising in any way. Online dating shows the quality alternatives
and large numbers at that.

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Slater defines the relationship between technology and dating as, This themehelping
society evolve past old traditions, whether marital fidelity (Biderman) or privacy (Zuckerberg)
runs through the world of social media. The message is: Conventions should be revised to
conform with the behavior enabled by technology, which has been tooled to accommodate all
possible behavior (Slater 90). What Slaters statement implies, is that if it is possibility in the
realm of what technology can do, then the mindset taken on by dating app CEOs is that society
should not only adjust its stigmas to certain taboos but let go of its virtues. This would imply that
not only does online dating shape our culture, but also that it has the power to influence on an
individual basis, not just a cultural basis.
Online dating determines our choices more than we are willing to admit that our choices
determine it. Given the nature of online dating, we act indulge accordingly with what we can get
away with because things just dont seem real. Online dating elicits a different psychological
and emotional response than reality does. When elicited a different emotional response, our
actions change. Michael Gazzaniga, author of Toward a Universal Ethics, believes that on a
some level, brains are hard-wired towards a natural order of ethics. When he explains the human
mirror system, humans natural inclination to feel guilt or empathy when someone around them
is feeling pain, he gives an example, Observing a dog barking activates my motor system and
therefore creates a deeper resonance with the observed action; seeing a picture of a barking dog
just doesnt get in my bones the same way (Gazzaniga 429). What we can understand through
Gazzanigas example is that the if applied to online dating, is that online dating limits our
emotional response because the information that our brains perceive is limited: conversations are
limited to messages and emoticons, people are limited to just what is on their profiles. Because

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of our limited emotional responses, our willingness to act morally becomes limited. Because
different parts of our brains are not activated when we perceive information on possible online
dating prospects, things simply dont resonate as well; things just dont feel real.
This is where we come full circle back to the death of the Pastor John Gibson. After his
death, many people came forward and spoke about his commitment to his community, loving
devotion to his family and the kindness he extended towards strangers. Perhaps the consequences
of his actions did not feel real when he was logging onto his Ashley Madison account. It was
never even specified that he met anyone off the site or how long he had actively used it. Perhaps
the only time the consequences deeply resonated, was when the virtual world permeated into the
real world, no longer letter the computer serve as a crutch as it does for so many others. Perhaps
it was when his wife and everyone that ever knew him, found out. The disconnect between the
virtual world and reality that online dating has created, has affected our ability to authentically
connect with others at every level: the selecting stage, even before one selects someone to
initiate conversation with, one is overwhelmed with options which results in distraction and
disorientation. It affects the getting-to-know stage because of the disconnect that is created
between what one sees on the others profile verses what has been verbalized in person. Even
when we are sure we like the person, it even affects the commitment stage. Whether we like it
or not, in this modern day and age, technology has infiltrated every aspect of our daily lives as
well our romantic lives. Because the notion of online dating has taken a forefront in a new
market environment as a primary way to find a date or marriage partner, it is crucial that we
exercise caution.

Works Cited
Ansari, Aziz, and Charlotte Alter. "Love In The Age Of Like." Time 185.22 (2015): 4046.
Academic Search Premier . Web. 25 Nov. 2015.
Appiah, Kwame. ""The Case against Character"" A World of Ideas . Ed. Lee Jacobus. 9th ed.
Boston and New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2013. 397413. Print.
Best, Kirsty, and Sharon Delmege. "The Filtered Encounter: Online Dating And The Problem Of
Filtering Through Excessive Information." Social Semiotics 22.3 (2012): 237258.
Academic Search Premier . Web. 25 Nov. 2015.
Bilton, Nick. "TInder, the Fast-Growing Dating App, Taps an Age-Old Truth." New York Times.
N.p., 29 Oct. 2015. Web. Nov.-Dec. 2015.
Blake, Andrew. "Pastor Commits Suicide after Being Revealed as Ashley Madison User in
Cheating Site Hack." The Washington Times 9 Sept. 2015. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.
Sales, Nancy. Tinder and the Dawn of the Dating Apocalypse. As romance gets swiped from
the screen, some twentysomethings arent liking what they see.Vanity Fair Mag., 31 Aug.
2015. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.
Slater, Dan. Love in the Age of Algorithms: What Technology Does to Meeting and Mating . New
York: Penguin Group, 2013. Google Books. Print. 14 November 2015.

Global Issues

Surface Issues

-Response to the prompt is a bit vague (thesis

-Make sure all in text citations are well cited

does not specifically answer question about

even the paraphrased

morality)

-do not forget commas , read through essay

-paragraphs do not seem fluid, transitions seem

once to make sure there are no comma error

rigid and the paragraphs feel very forced (not

-shifts in person or tense; keep everything in

really a continuation, just kind of stops and then

the present tense

next point, no connection between paragraphs)

-change header at the top of the paper so that it

make sure each paragraph is in conversation

follows MLA format

with the other paragraphs

-re-read essay for any missing words in

-it is probably still unclear to audiences how the

sentences

introduction topic of John Gibson's suicide

-make sure semicolons and colons are used

relates to the body paragraph, make sure body

correctly

paragraphs thoroughly explain

-make sure to include the Works Cited Page

-make sure all source material is completely

relatable to the point you are trying to make
(see Appiah quote)
-be sure to distribute sources evenly throughout
essay so one part doesn't feel too "sourceheavy" and another feels to "commentaryheavy)