This article in NYT had a curious theme to it. I'd been thinking about a position paper for a CHI workshop on online-dating lately. I really think that a large part of online dating sites comes from people who have moved to new, urban locations, where they are having a hard time meeting people. Online websites provide at least some information about a person and a bit of a distance from which it is possible to find something out about a person before meeting them. Yes the Internet has its drawbacks (you never really know what people look like until you meet them). Meeting people, though, is a somewhat dangerous thing anyway - whether you base your first impressions on online conversation or looks. Stakes are there, just different.
The article in the Times had an interesting quote though - "Web sites like Craig's List and Friendster," she said, "have taken the dating stigma away from using activity partner services." A nod to social networking sites that have managed to make meeting people online interesting, without the stigma of a direct purpose of dating. Interesting people are hard to come by, harder even when outside of a crazy academic environment (of course this depends on your definition of interesting, but to each their own). The funny thing is, that I don't think the initial purpose of the social network websites had anything to do with making the step towards re-casting the Internet simply as just another social space for a larger audience, outside of chat rooms and MMORPGs. The Internet has long been more of a social space than anything else, yet the image of a nerdy pasty-white boy stuck somewhere in a dirty apartment, pretending to be a beautiful blond in a chat-room has been a potent deterrent for much of the Internet user-population.
Two things have happened though:
1. Teen-agers have grown up into adults, grown up using the Internet outside of the stigmatized images and self-consciousness of technologically inept. As more of these kids grow into adulthood, more of the Internet social aspects will become both viable and interesting.
2. The user-friendly level of current interface design has spurred on increasing saturation of users, hitting critical mass and creating a large enough population that coudl sustain the concept of a social network website.
The future holds promise... it is also interesting to watch the new space grappling with glaring privacy problems, demanding ever more vigilance and attention to nuances of personal behavior and that of others. The world only gets more interesting... Brain candy... here we go!
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