Love Over the Internet: Online Dating Dangers

The World Wide Web — the internet — has opened up a completely different kind of media communication for our society, the sort that would have seemed impossible just a few years ago. Building new connections and keeping up friendships that started in real life are now effortless online. Online dating represents a whole new dimension of communicating over the internet too. Today, plenty of legitimate providers — and unfortunately some shady ones too — offer dating sites and chat platforms online. These are meant to help singles find a partner for a relationship in "real life," making it possible to meet true love virtually. But this possibility also brings a few online dating dangers along with it.

Reality and Virtuality - One Person, Two Identities Plenty of people searching for true love probably wish for love at first sight. Online, you can really only speak of love at first sight when a potential chat partner's profile picture grabs you instantly and you fall for the photo itself. And that's exactly where one of the central problems with online dating dangers lies. Fundamentally, your first impression online can only be based on what's actually published — favorite activities, career background, or individual hobbies. But a person's true character can never be captured and understood through a dating platform as quickly and realistically as it can face to face, in reality. Whether the spark actually catches usually only becomes clear, if at all, further along in the process of getting to know each other virtually and chatting back and forth. And that's precisely where the typical online dating dangers lie. There's simply no guarantee that anything a chat partner shares about themselves contains even a grain of truth. If, for instance, someone completely rewrites details about their fitness level or their job just to appear more attractive to a potential chat partner, you can quickly find yourself "falling for" a person who only exists on the web. Online dating dangers also include the fact that profile pictures get "touched up." Filters from various editing apps put a person's face in a rather more flattering light here and there. That's how 200 pounds quietly becomes 165, a nose gets visually slimmed down, or under-eye circles get retouched away. So anyone who falls for another user's profile picture online might just be falling for a person who, in reality, doesn't exist at all. It's worth keeping this fact in mind during every chat, to safely steer clear of online dating dangers.

Online Dating Dangers

The Biggest Online Dating Dangers: Scammers Have It Easier Online

Far worse, and far more dangerous, than faked personal details and profile pictures is the fact that some users exploit the trust of people who are genuinely looking for a partner. Sadly, it happens again and again that scammers worm their way into the trust of chat partners through dating platforms, chat, email, and even phone calls. Sometimes these scammers are only after the victim's money — the so-called romance scammers. To safely steer clear of online dating dangers, there are a few things worth keeping in mind. For one, private photos should never be sent over the web. That goes for seemingly harmless vacation snapshots too, or photos of other people, like family members. Sharing overly personal details, life circumstances, or personal worries also shouldn't happen virtually, and counts among the central online dating dangers. Staying alert and handling your own data and information with care are the foundation for protecting your own identity.