Online dating mcdonaldization

McDonaldization is the term invented by George Ritzer to describe a Because of this while entering any dating site a user knows what to.
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Lastly, the emergence of online dating has also led to a commoditization of relationships where relationships are manifested as a result of two individuals successfully selling their image to each other. Online dating has changed the dynamics of relationships whereby it has enabled a more time efficient way of sharing emotional intimacy.

Before the introduction of online dating, maintaining a bond in a relationship would consume a huge period of time where a couple would have to arrange to meet each other. In circumstances where a couple could not meet each other, for example during a war, they would have to write to each other through love letters. This again consumed time; a party in the couple may only receive the letter a week later. Thus time was rather a hindrance to couples in a relationship where they would have to wait for a considerable period of time until both of them were able to mutually express their emotions and feelings at the same time.

Online dating has significantly reduced the time required for a couple to emotionally connect with each other. In fact, the time gap between writing, receiving, sending and reading has been made almost instantaneous. This means that couples can instantly communicate with one another online without having to worry about the discrepancy between their emotional state and the time at which they send messages to one another.

However, one may argue that the absence of non-verbal cues when couples communicate online negates the efficiency that online dating provides in conveying emotions in the first place. Words alone in Computer Mediated Communication CMC words alone may not be enough for couples to convey their emotions and feelings to one another. Non-verbal cues are important in decreasing the ambiguity of emotion expressed online. They compensate for the lack of physical signals required during face-to-face interaction.

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This impersonal nature of online dating brings me to second point on how online dating has resulted in an artificial way of looking for a partner and hence starting a relationship. The emergence of online dating has also made relationships seem more artificial. Prior to online dating, a couple found it hard to exaggerate their physical attractiveness or personalities in the absence of a technological barrier, leaving no room for deceiving the partner. In other words, the perceptions that both individuals in the couple had of each other were more immutable.

Likewise, the online dating world dictates the kind of information that the individual would want to disclose about himself. This disclosure is facilitated by the fact that individuals may reinvent their self-presentation after it has been posted. With the emergence of online dating, the absence of face-to-face interaction between two daters means they can exaggerate key information such as their height to enhance their attractiveness. This deception in presentation provides an artificial basis for starting a relationship as individuals use the abovementioned information that can be false to select a partner.

Furthermore, information on online dating sites such as photos can be constantly edited. In suggesting a nature of communication between an online couple that is artificial, one must not forget that online couples do eventually meet offline. This would suggest that relationships that have their origins in online communication may not be artificial if the relationship transits to the offline arena and hence is free from the artificial online world of dating.

The fact that couples would want to meet offline due to the impressions that they have of each other shows an attempt to continue the relationship, making it all the more sincere and genuine. However, while the transition from online dating to offline interaction may make a relationship less artificial and more personal, arbitrary indicators that couples have used online such as job occupation to get to know one another make the basis of a relationship artificial.

Rather, the dearth of non-verbal cues evident in computer-mediated communication makes it difficult for one to establish a personal identity. You get what you give. The last principle that ties into this is efficiency. Efficiency in terms of McDonaldization is the optimal method for accomplishing a task. Efficiency in McDonaldization means that every aspect of the organization is geared toward the minimization of time.

For online dating efficiency would be how long it would take someone from being single to in a relationship. However, with efficiency, when getting something faster you are risking a lower quality product, good things take time. It takes time to make a good hamburger, much like it takes time to form a good relationship.

McDonaldization of Dating

Hypothetically speaking, if you are hungry and seeking a hamburger you have two options, a fast food or a sit down restaurant. Also, when you go to a drive-thru you are missing the experience of dining out, like how if you spend your dating years behind a computer, you are missing out on the experience of going out into the world and meeting new people and trying new things. Online dating websites operate in a similar fashion. These companies are showing thousands of potential singles to each other everyday, and like fast-food, these results are usually low-quality and the same thing over and over again.

However, these dating websites are making a significant profit due to monthly membership fees and money from advertising, when what they are doing is nothing more the serving up the same bland results time after time. The advertisements that you see for these websites include statistics about how an increasing number of marriages today are started on the internet.

McDonaldization of Online Dating Essay

What these companies fail to mention is how the divorce rate in America right now is tragically high. She discusses the many factors of such a high divorce rates, such as, the economy and also mentions the fact that this can be caused due to people rushing into relationships.

Online dating makes it incredibly easy to meet people quickly, thus rushing into relationships, and ultimately, shortening the lifespan of such relationships. Tamara Afifi also goes on to explain the high costs of divorces and how lawyers benefit from this.


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Additionally, there are new websites where you can get a divorce online since it is so common today, making it fast and convenient, with little human interacting. The people behind dating websites are trying to run a company and are focused on making money.

In her piece, The Price of Love, Emi Berry explains how dating websites care nothing more than the profit they receive from people looking for love. Money can, however, help find that love you seek via a dating service.

The Artificiality of Dating in the Virtual Realm

They are looking to get as much revenue as they can as fast as they can. They have essentially created a conveyer-belt method for getting single individuals into relationships, and at the end of the day, they are just people trying to run a company. Low quality, unhappy and unsatisfying marriages are being more visible due to Internet dating sites.

The same principles can apply to dating profiles. The beautiful thing about the internet is that you can show people looking at your profile all of your best qualities, while hiding your less desirable ones, thus making people seem much more appealing online.

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When couples from online dating websites meeting in real life, they may not be all the seemed to be online. However, people might try to make things works because they believe that the person they are meeting in real life is just as great as the one they met online, only to be disappointed later on when they are not all they turned out to be.

However, is all online dating necessarily bad? You hear many success stories on television, as well as real life, and theres a positive and negative side to most things. In the case of online dating, all you really hear about in the media is the good and happy relationships that come out of this new technology.

McDonaldization vs Dating by Speed Dating on Prezi

What they fail to mention is the disappointment, short-term relationships, and they large amounts of money that people are spending on these websites to be connected with people. Yes, it is true that these websites allow you meet people you may not have ever met without them, as well as match you with people who the website feels you would be compatible with. When you meet someone in person there is a connection that you get that is unlike anything else that can be felt through a computer screen.

This just makes you think, how long is this going to keep going on until human interaction is completely obsolete? So at the end of the day, we are living in a modern world, one where McDonaldization is inevitably taking over the way that most organizations are run. This process is making the world more technological, and computerizing everything.

You have to ask yourself, when is it too far?