Dominic: Times are changing. You've got to change with the times.
Boss Paul Vitti: What, am I supposed to get a fuckin' website?
- Analyze This (1999)
Let me begin this blog with an observation by “old people” that times are changing so quickly. The way things were done before are more and are continuously being simplified as consumers around the world continue to favor convenience. Back in the days, lovers send messages to each other through letters. Nowadays, cellular phone and SMS has cut down the process to the nth power making it more easier for lovers to send each other messages.
I wouldn’t be talking about lovers and their ways but I would be talking about something else. Something that I think would be more prevalent in the future, Online dating.
Dating takes a lot of time, planning, and money. In the near future, the man might put more utility in meeting people conveniently.. or not. The point is the industry for this type of dating exists now and seems to be growing in other countries like US.
Though this way of dating sounds more convenient than the usual, there are perils lurking around it. As the communication takes place digitally, you might never know and judge by instinct the real character of the person behind the words on the screen. Moreover, there is always a possibility that criminal minded persons might use this tool as a means of executing their twisted idea of satisfaction.
In the US, some states are pushing for legislation that would regulate these tools. In California, a bill was introduced requiring online dating sites to conduct criminal background check on their members. If they should fail, a fine would be imposed on each day they do not meet the requirement.
In the Philippines, online dating is not prevalent. There are popular online communities that Filipinos use such as friendster, multiply, etc but dating is not the reason why people subscribe to it. If you look over the internet for online dating for Filipinos, you’d just end up mostly looking at mail order bride sites. What is prevalent is matchmaking by textmessaging. Similar to online dating, texters send out their profile hoping that someone would have interest in them.
Eventhough the means might be slightly different, both are “convenient’ and are at risks with problems of being used by criminal minded people. The question now is: should there be a law that would regulate these activities to avert or minimize the risks. States in US are pushing through for regulation probably because there are several instances where some persons in these States were taken advantage of through online dating. In the Philippines, no law nor bill seeks to cover this field. Maybe this is just a new field and is not yet a priority as of the moment. Nonetheless, the field does present a possible problem, though not yet ubiquitous and might only be more visible in the future.
The point of this post, as to celebrate the opening of this blog, is not primarily to discuss online dating. If you think it is, you were misled or maybe I’m just a bad writer. My point is, times are changing, and so shall the areas that lawmakers should consider.
2 comments:
Never tried online dating. Don't think I ever will really. But I can see why it can be appealing. Akin to the rationale for speed dating, it allows one to determine very quickly whether or not a given person might make for a good match. No fun, after all, spending an hour or two on a traditional blind date, when you already know in the first 5 minutes that you and that person just don't have any chemistry. Online, what with uploaded profiles and other useful information, it's that much easier to weed out the don'ts, and concentrate on the do's. Which is especially great for people with precious little free time.
The issue of security really is a contentious one with regard to online dating. For example, the True.com online dating service http://www.true.com/default.htm attempts to address some of these issues by screening their members against U.S. public records to determine marital status and the existence of felony convictions. As I understand the service, however, such screening is done with respect to the names members indicate in their profiles. Presumably, all one would need to do is use a fake name, and no one would be the wiser. While this screening isn't foolproof (which True.com itself admits), one can at least appreciate the fact that it is their policy to file lawsuits in federal court against felons or married people who procure membership to their site (the latter for wire fraud, if you can imagine).
The Philippines is slowly joining the online dating bandwagon, although we're still stuck with the regular friendster and yahoo messenger tools, this hasn't prevented people from meeting or dating complete strangers. All people need is a webcam nowadays. Little do they know that some of webcam footages are fake, they just use these looped videos whenever they show their "live" webcam. (dunno how they do it) I've seen webcam footages of stripping girls from Manila but they are actually men who take advantage of those "pay-per-view" foreigners. Technology sure is finding new ways to commit age old crimes.
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