The Preston Social has announced a new event this Tuesday, discussing the pitfalls, quirks and promises that come with online dating. The group are keen to state that it is not associated with dating at all, it’s the usual Preston Social format of speakers and open discussion at the Forum on Winckley Street.
AdvertisementIan Forrester, a senior producer at the BBC in research and development will deliver his thoughts, opinions and knowledge at the event. He’ll be looking at the stigma of online dating while sharing his experiences.
Here’s the event description from the Preston Social’s event page:
We use the Internet for a lot of things… paying bills, reading the news, keeping in touch with old friends, but a growing number of us are turning to the web to find relationships, soulmates and love. More people than ever are utilising dating services and many are finding success. We’ve all seen the commercials, what used to be considered seedy or geeky is now big business and pretty mainstream.In 2008 SourceWire wrote:“In 2007, 7.8 million single Britons used some form of online dating service to find romance, compared to the 5.4 million who used a mixture of offline and online services in 2005.
What’s more, 53% of singles (59% of men and 46% of women) say they intend to use the Internet meet someone in the future, with figures rising to 65% with 36 to 40 year olds who say they intend to log on to find love in 2008. Nearly one third of singles (29%) believe it’s a great way of finding love (as opposed to a casual fling), and nearly two thirds of singles (57%) say it’s socially acceptable, even if 25% of people in a relationship would beg to differ.”If that was the picture four years ago then it is likely trends have continued upward. With more and more of us primarily using digital communication combined with the global reach of these tools and networks are online relationship a natural progression?We’ll be discussing the potential implications and taboos around this topic, and, given the saucy subject nature, hopefully injecting a bit of humour too.