DM & Relationships

Written by : Eileene Kim

All it takes is just a click on a mouse to start that instant affair. Whether or not your intentions are in it, the easy access through internet made it possible to provide a tempting dilemma. As I was researching online, trying to define the term “cheating” from other perspective, I came to the  conclusion that the expression of the term “cheating” is when an emotional connection exist between someone else other than your significant. Physical rendezvous are no longer consider the only infidelity anymore. There are now multiples of actions to commit disloyalty. Some varieties of way to enhance your chance of becoming emotionally connected is through instant messaging, emails, chart rooms and social websites such as Facebook and MySpace. Another disturbing way to initiate cyber cheating is through websites that are especially made for infidelity; these websites include cheatingwives.com, livejasmin(cybersex) and www.eons.com. Before choosing this topic, I  was completely unaware of how many websites there are to promote adultery. It seems though nowadays, cheating is viewed as normal, typical, and harmless.

A video I found interesting that was ridiculous enough for me to chuckle to was a video that questioned ,”is  cyber sex is cheating ?” from this short film, it has gone as far as creating your own avatar(lovatar) for the purpose of having sexual intercourse. According to Allison Castillo from your tango.com, this created problems as big as filing for divorce. Apparently a married couple who participated in an avatar game didn’t think it was just a game anymore…well at least the wife didn’t. After witnessing her husband having sex with another female avatar, she considered it as cheating. It’s amazing how  role playing games that are made for young adults has transition it’s way into a place that can cause infidelity.

Another interesting point that I came upon involves the situation with Tiger Woods. Thanks to the media, as we all know,  in the past 24 hours, Tiger Woods was involve in a serious car accident and has been allegedly cheating on his wife. In addition, there were claims that Porn star Joslyn James had guilty sex messages ‘from Tiger Woods’, this of course would not make his wife too happy. An example of a text message he sent out to Josyln on august 29 was “I want to treat you rough, Throw you around, spank and slap you.” We can agree this is a form of sexting. Now, although people might  agree that this isn’t our business, and what he did, many other people are guilty off, the fact that he was/is a respected celebrity, the result of it lead to an application on an iphone. Since sexting has become so popular amongst our, generation, our technology now has “Cover Your Tracks”, that’s the motto of a new service and app available for the iPhone and iPod Touch, which can automatically delete sent and received text messages. The service is called “Tiger Text”, and according to its developers, the service does not refer to the most famous athlete in the world, Tiger Woods, but rather to actual tigers because they are hard to track. However, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that the influence came from the popular golf athlete. The application allows users to set a time limit on how long a text message will remain on a users phone before being erased.The app is free for the first 100 messages during a 15 days trial period, after that it’s $1.49 per 250 messages sent each month. We as human are inventing more ways to have an affair and at the same time creating more ways to hide your track marks. According to the creator of the application, Tiger Text is supposed to give texters power over historical records of their private texts that they might hammer out one night and regret the next day. In my opinion, if a text message being sent out did not mean to have bad

It’s official, The DM does have a negative influence on relationships, they’re given websites, applications, advertisement and social media to be use as an advantage to deceive their insignificant other. However, we can’t just blame the DM for our full behavior; therefore, if you’re going to do the crime, you better accept the consequences.

Romantic Relationships

Written by: Jamie Krider

As people get busier in their work and personal life they often find it harder to go out or make time to search for their soul mate. Wouldn’t it just be easier to be able to search for that person from your living room? Digital media has done just that and more. Men and women are now able to find a life partner and date through the internet, telephone, cell phone and TV shows. Now a day’s, searching for a husband or a wife on-line is as common and socially accepted as if the person was to go out and do the real thing. Recent national studies indicate that 3%-6% of current long-term relationships and marriages began over the internet.
One form of dating is via the internet through a dating service specifically for finding the ‘perfect match’ for you. Such sites include EHarmony.com, Match.com, Yahoo Personals and PlentyofFish.com. “Most of the Online Dating Service providing Network Sites allow their users to upload their photographs, make profiles and search for their respective suitable according to gender, location, age range and sought preferences. Some of these service providers also offer online chats and message boards for the users and thus attract visitors to sign up and join in the network, resulting in the growth of size.” (Social Networking) A majority of these sites have the person take a questionnaire that can average 10 pages long to help assemble a profile and matches for the customer based on their personality, morals, beliefs, likes and dislikes. “When you use an online dating service, you can screen your potential lovers and avoid the ones you know are not going to be compatible.” (ArticlesBase)
A majority of people obtain a successful relationship through this process and a number of couples get married each year. According to Fiore’s research “In August 2003 alone, 40 million unique users visited online dating sites in the United States alone, according to U.S. News & World Report — that’s about half the number of single adults in the U.S.” A majority of users are people who are older and don’t often go out publicly due to busy schedules or intimidation. In the real world people are so quick to judge. That guy you blew off at the coffee shop could have been the most compatible person for you, but you quickly wrote him off the second he walked towards you because you didn’t like his hair style. That is the great thing about on-line dating, you judge and are judged so much less compared to the real dating world. It’s not about what hair style he has or the stink eye he gives while reading the newspaper, it’s about how people connect on a deeper level; a connection that last a life time. On-Line dating websites have become so popular that it resulted in a figure of more than $450 million being spent on the service by US citizens alone in the year 2004.
Another on-line dating tool is access to a pool of people through social networks such as Facebook and MySpace. Although the main purpose of these sites is for people to interact with academic friends, close friends and family, people often find themselves making new friends and potential mates. These sites even added their own ‘personals’ section to help single people find love. A website called Thread.com is a company that utilizes Facebook users to find people of interest through their friends on Facebook by suggesting friends of friends with similar interest. An ABC news story done by Walter Storholt called Facebook’s Starring Role in Budding Relationships covers how Facebook is the new way for college students to meet other singles and set up dates. Storholt interviews several college students asking them how they use Facebook as a dating tool. Many students responded with they use it to seek out information about a person prior to going on a date, they send pick up lines, ‘pokes’, and it is just another source of flirting and be able to meet someone new.

Finding love these days is not limited to just going to the bar or making a profile on an internet website. In today’s reality junkie world, a single man or woman is able to audition for a reality dating show to find love such as The Bachelor, Love Games: Bad Girls Need Love Too, Average Joe, Daisy of Love, Blind date and More to Love. Is this type of dating service a success? Though many believe that these shows are a scam and all about the ratings there are a few couple’s who have found love and happiness such as season 14 of The Bachelor’s couple Jason and Molly who just got married February 27,2010 and Bachelorette couple Trista and Ryan married in 2003. Many people have lost and loved on these reality shows, and thought this may not be the best dating service available but it is still a way for individuals to meet different types of people one may never have had a chance to do in the real world.

Work Cited

Hall, Jeffrey A., et al. “Strategic misrepresentation in online dating: The effects of gender, self- monitoring, and personality traits.” Journal of Social & Personal Relationships 27.1 (2010): 117-135. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 19 Mar. 2010.
Mikyoung, Kim, Kwon Kyoung-Nan, and Lee Mira. “Psychological Characteristics of Internet Dating Service Users: The Effect of Self-Esteem, Involvement, and Sociability on the Use of Internet Dating Services.” CyberPsychology & Behavior 12.4 (2009): 445-449. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 19 Mar. 2010.

Sprecher, Susan. “Relationship Initiation and Formation on the Internet.” Marriage & Family Review 45.6-8 (2009): 761-782. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 19 March. 2010.

“Online Dating Trends.” Social Networking. Web. 17 March 2010.

Ellison, Nicole, Charles Steinfield, and Cliff Lampe. “The benefits of Facebook “friends:” Social
capital and college students’ use of online social network sites.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(4), (2007) article 1. Web. 17 March 2010.

Kincaid, Jason. “Thread.com Raises $1.2 Million for Facebook-Powered Matchmaking Service.”
TechCrunch. TechCrunch, 1 Sept. 2009. Web. 17 March 2010.

Hill, Chappel. “Facebook’s Starring Role in a Budding Romance.” ABC News/Technology. ABC
News, 22 Oct. 2008. Web. 17 March 2010.

“Successful Online Dating.” Articles Base. 1 Jan. 2010. Web. 17 March 2010.

How digital media facilitates relationships

Written by: Evan Grossjan
In the realm of digital media, there are ways in which social networking sites become aimed towards users of the media. They seem to have an affect on individuals who are involved in online relationships. The question is how does digital-media facilitate these virtual relationships?

Do individuals who engage in websites like eHarmony.com or Facebook.com find that these sites  help their decision making and ultimately the relationships that are formed through them? One article in The Irish Times stated that online relationship development has become the new “lonely hearts columns of newspapers and magazines”. This trend can be identified when you look at how people interacted and developed relationships years before the development of social networking sites. As information changes and becomes readily available to millions and millions of users, these social sites must also evolve in a way so as to reach its target audience. Focusing on relationships, digital media poses as a ‘friend’ to all who use it. We’ve seen this model many times when we are on our Facebook account. You’re online and a dialog box pops up in the corner saying that you might know someone who you may not be friends with virtually, but because their digital information matches some of yours, (same school, city, or friend of a friend) they offer the choice to select their profile and you then can visit with that person. The same can be said when we look at a person’s Twitter home page and there is an option to look at who that person is following. If your interested in any of their friends they are following, you simply begin to follow that person as well. These sites are set up that way so that the constant flow and transfer of information is as readily available as it can be to its users.

But to understand how digital media affects relationships through facilitating the circle of online, social meetings, we must look at what is required to participate digitally. Users of digital media need to understand a coded language that enables them to participate in this process. Phrases like ‘tagging’ and ‘friend request’ are embedded in millions of users brains as vocabulary used only online. So to adapt to this trend, digital media, social sites and virtual tools aimed at developing and nurturing online relationships realized that they must adapt as well and shift their focus to more intricate ways of facilitating relationships. One example could be the Internet/phone application tool known as Skype. Users of this tool can video conference  and call people through their Internet connection while having the ability to see via web cam, the person they’re chatting with as they talk to them. Other examples such as instant messaging are quick ways to reach people virtually by speaking with them while connected online in real-time.

Online relationships have become a way for people to seek out others they might not find in their home town, school, or even workplace. Those seeking romantic or casual relationships do not necessarily need to head out to their local bars or clubs to find people anymore. Instead they can access their computer and participate digitally with friends. The question then becomes, what is healthy participation and what is harmful participation? One story that has always intrigued me had to do with one guy taking his virtual relationship too far. I have two friends who are married and they have developed a relationship with another couple who lives in Canada. They would have had no way of doing this years ago unless physically present in Canada. But thanks to digital media, (instant messaging, texting, video chatting, Facebook/Myspace) my friends used these virtual tools and began what they thought was a cool relationship with their northern neighbors. The four of them spoke off and on via Facebook, Skype, and sometimes through cell phones. The male friend from Canada began to take matters into his own hands and decided to only speak to my friend’s wife here in the U.S. The Canadian man, although married, decided that he wanted to become romantically involved with my friend’s wife and started harassing her online. She told her husband, my friend, and they confronted him by saying they would no longer be able to speak with him or his wife any more online. The Canadian man then started to call her and text her constantly so much to the point that they had to get new cell phone numbers and changed their Facebook accounts.

Another interesting look into how digital media facilitates relationships is that it allows for distance between two individuals participating online, to become less of an issue when involved romantically or casually. (unless you become and obsessed Canadian wanting to be with a married woman) Obviously as the relationship progresses, that distance becomes more of a factor but nevertheless, digital media has progressed many relationships. Where else could you look at a huge list of people and pick and choose who you want to develop relationships with? Digital media facilitates relationships by understanding its users and what they require; interaction. Texting, social networking, email, and many other forms of digital media, have all had huge impacts on the development of interpersonal relationships. Access to people and their information has changed the way we operate and maintain relationships. It doesn’t have to be scary, (like my friends Canadian relationship) but we can make the best use of it as humanly possible.

This video gives a brief overview on how digital relationships have been facilitated through digital media.