A bunch of ideas that I tried to connect together!

Online relationships, whatever they be, friendships or romantic relationships are extremely viable. The idea that relationships often start and end before people carry out any sort of "in person" interaction is true to both social networking online and online dating. When we researched the topic of online dating for our class project, my group and I came to realize that people are aware of this factor, yet they choose to continue to engage in this form of networking due to certain aspects, such as convenience and ease at which they can join these worlds. Essentially, if people are easily able to start a multitude of friendships and relationships online, they can afford to loose one or two. Online dating, as well as social networking have developed to be available for everyone. People today are not so interested in separating the real world from the virtual world, because often the virtual world stands to be more accepting of who they are. Any form of site in which people can network with others in a way in which they feel at ease will lead to two situations. People will either feel more inclined to represent their true selves, or more inclined to misrepresent themselves. Either way... they don't really have much to loose and people find comfort in this fact. Ambivalence in relation to technology means that, as explained by Ted, at a certain stage in their development, technologies can embody a range of different meanings in relation to social groups. Thus we can consider that during the development of social networking sites as well as online dating sites these technologies have been valued by different social groups in different ways. Different social groups will have different emotions and feelings that they attach to these technologies and these feelings will affect they way in which they use the technology, thus, they way that people use and adapt online dating and social networking sites to their lives in various different ways will affect the development of these technologies. In relation to the fact that people are willing to jump head first into into online relationships (whatever they may be), due to the ease at which they can do so, we see that this is one form in which a social group has taken a technology and adapted it to their needs. The technology will change with them as the creators of Facebook and these online dating sites come to understand the advantages that different social groups draw from the sites. For example, the mini- feed on Facebook was not always a part of the system. However, the creators realized that some social groups were not only using Facebook as an avenue to connect with others, but also as a way of keeping up to date with what other people were doing, in their own personal lives. As a result, the mini- feed was created as a way of updating people on other peoples actions. Thus, Facebook, at a certain stage in it's development, was altered due to the meaning that certain users found in staying up to date with other peoples daily actions. Overall, social networking and online dating have the similarity that the technologies will continue to develop in accordance to the different meanings that social groups will attach to the technology. Right now social groups have found it meaningful to be able to interact in ways that are easy and thus, online networking sites have adapted accordingly and continue to find ways to make this possible.