Globalisation
of dating
For a long time throughout the history of
humans we have walked around doing our daily things and trying to find someone
to mate with and ultimately re-produce. As the world has grown our technology
has followed and thus has changed the way in which we date. The traditional way
of dating has changed, while still there, there are now other options and other
ways in which dating can begin.
Technology has paved the way for computers,
the internet, mobile phones and apps, this has brought a huge change and
overhaul in dating and created a new realm. Online dating. It’s a new era in
human history, technology has suddenly become the norm and at the same time it’s
so advanced to what it was 50 years ago. Instead of going out for a few drinks
with your friends, going to school or the supermarket and meeting the future
love of your life you can now just open up your phone, download an app and have
the choice of 100’s of people to pick to start a conversation with and then
eventually choose to go on a date if you both decide to. You could say that it’s
dating made simple, it gives hope to everyone and hope that there is definitely
someone out there for everyone.
It’s not just the world of dating that has
evolved with technology, online dating has also adapted to change and developed
more than anyone could imagine. There really is a dating website or app for
everyone. This includes your usual well known OK Cupid, E-harmony but also many
that are to do with religion like christianmingle.com and for fetishes and
services like seekingarrangement.com, elitesingles.com, bondagepal.com and also
for sexuality which include the infamous Grindr. From what once started as just
a few messages between a few people has grown exponentially and become a
worldwide, money making business.
In the UK, according to
datingsitesreviews.com:
About seven million UK residents are
currently using online dating. This is a huge amount of people using this
platform as a means to meet others. However, there is a dark and dangerous side
to this platform – as between 2009 and 2014, the number of reports of serious
sexual assaults during first face-to-face meetings following initial contact
online rose in the UK from 33 to 184. This is a 450% increase.
Before all of these apps and websites as
said above, meeting someone was restricted and the majority of people that
dated would already know or know of the person they end up dating. With the
merge of the apps/sites and the internet, dating is now global. I could go on
to my laptop now, log on to a dating site like seekingarrangement.com and chat
to someone over in New York, Los Angeles or even Toronto and meet them just as
easily. Dating has now been globalised, whether the intention or not, it also
makes many companies a huge profit. Although many people in the world now have
access to the internet, there are still millions living in poverty and unable
to access this and other globalised platforms.
In January 2015 – a bit dated as a year in
technology can change a lot – Mobile Industry produced a very telling article
that explains in graphs and pictures the usage around the world and also stats
on the UK. You can view this here –
As you can see with the above image, the
west is very connected, which for us makes dating globalised between developed
countries, however, in other countries, access is still limited.
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