McDonaldization of Online Dating Essay

McDonalds is wizard of the ab kayoed recognizable companies in the land, they hand served billions and reserve restaurants in nearly any country in the benignant beings. In a society that greatly set efficiency McDonalds could be looked at as the judgmentl theoretical account for how to run a corporation. In recent years, the ideologies that McDonalds uses in rail their company ar being absorbed into our everyday lives. In 1996 sociologist, George Ritzer, came f completely(a) in all out with a book explaining this process, hitherto creating the term, McDonaldization, to describe it. Essentially, he explains how, rationales of the fast-food restaurant ar coming to dominate more(prenominal) and more sectors of Ameri plunder society as well as of the rest of the ground (Ritzer 1). This model, based off of the worlds rotundst chain of hamburger fast-food restaurants, is wizard of the nearly influential facets of the world(prenominal) marketplace, and its assembly -line process of doing transaction is driving consume be and skyrocketing profitability. However, these cost cuts do non come without a price. Although McDonalds and early(a)(a) fast-food restaurant imprisonment handle it have been passing successful in terms of efficiency, in that respect are subtle negative effects on the quality of the proceeds and society as a whole. In recent years one of last industries that would be suspected of McDonaldization, has in fact adopted this business model, the world of geological date.Modern technologies are making it more and more easier to becoming forward- sounding people, with as little face-to-face interaction as practicable. A most recent example of this is the date action, Tinder, which may upright be the purest example of how McDonaldization has tickped so far into the floorboards of our society that it is now even change the way people are reckoning potential life partners. The application shows a picture of one use r to an early(a)wise and allows the user to anonymously homogeneous or pass them. If twain users like each other then it results in a match and Tinder introduces the two users and opens a chat. Only after the two users connect solely because they observe the other aesthetically pleasing, then do they postulate to know anything just about the other person on a level deeper than their appearance. Eliminating time lags and distance, Tinder bridge over the gap between digital and physical geological dating, enabling users to experience the minute gratification that modern society holds in such graduate(prenominal) regards. sequence Tinder is just one example of this, online dating as a whole has become McDonaldized, and all of the principles that constitute the process can be applied to this modern form of dating.To start, the principle of control is, the standardization and uniformness of the corporation and the replacement of clements by non-human technologies (Ritzer ). In the centre of online dating this would be the replacement of meeting someone in person and odour a connection, to talking to a person from easy a computing machine secrecy. The principle of predictability goes along with this. Predictability is how the services have become uniform and standard. This manner that no matter where a person goes, they will receive the akin service and receive the same product every time when interacting with the McDonaldized organization. An online dating indite can however be so customizable. You can hatful a persons deal outer, location, their hobbies, further in that respect is just so much words on a screen can secernate about someone, and essentially all of these profiles can begin to jutm a lot alike. What these profiles lack is the way someones face lights up when they are talking about their favorite book, how they get embarrassed when you preen them, or even something as simple as the way they smell.Although the sentiment alist in everyone likes to believe that they can find their soulmate, the chances of meeting them through a computer screen take inm a lot less(prenominal) likely. When online dating, for the most part, you are just looking at photo, after photo of people, and without human interaction you dont much of a deeper connection unless you aggravate a conversation with all of the hundreds of profiles you are faced with. The next principle, calculability means that the objective should be quantifiable (sales) rather than subjective (taste).(Ritzer) McDonaldization developed the printing that quantity equals quality, and that a large amount of product delivered to the customer in a suddenly amount of time is the same as one high quality product. Essentially, calculability is the idea that you get out, what you give into it. Forming an online relationship does non take much effort at all, but in doing so you are jeopardizing the quality of the relationship. An example of this would be if you are vent out and making an effort to talk to, connect and form received world relationships with people, you are much more likely to find someone that you could have a meaningful relationship with instead of simply posting an online profile and having a computer between you and the person you are talking to.Online dating websites use the idea that joining is simple and easy to attract reinvigo driftd customers, but thats non the way dating should be. Like anything else in life if you want to get something through with(p) the top hat way possible you need to localise time and effort in order into it to see the results you are looking for. 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. The example that Ritzer uses for McDonalds is, the speedy way to get from being hungry to being full. Efficiency in McDonaldization means that every aspect of the organiz ation is geared toward the minimization of time. For online dating efficiency would be how long it would take someone from being genius to in a relationship. Efficiency could be considered the most important principle due to how much of todays society has this need to get what they want when they want it. However, with efficiency, when getting something faster you are risking a cut back quality product, impregnable things take time.It takes time to do work a good hamburger, much like it takes time to form a good relationship. hypothetically speaking, if you are hungry and seeking a hamburger you have two options, a fast food or a sit down restaurant. You could get a cheap, low quality burger immediately, through a drive-through window, with modified human interaction and right when you want it, one that it much like a lot all of the other fast food burgers youve had before. You too have the option to go out and take the time and invest the effort into seeking out the best burg er restaurant and going there and getting that once in a lifetime, high quality, satisfying burger, and even then, its not just about getting the burger, its about going out and enjoying the experience of sitting in the restaurant and wait for your food. That is how online dating could be viewed, as settling for a McDonalds quarter-pounder when you in trueity want a gourmet burger. Also, when you go to a drive-thru you are absent the experience of dining out, like how if you sp halt 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. For fast food restaurants the constant repetition of quiet, low-quality ingredients being put into exactly the same thing millions of times a day, is not at all theproblem, but is in fact the solution, and it the very basis of McDonalds highly successful business model.Their products may not be ideal taste-wise, and not at all nutritional, but the custo mers know what they are getting. Online dating websites operate in a similar fashion. These companies are masking thousands of potential singles to each other everyday, and like fast-food, these results are universally 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 capital 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 build of marriages today are started on the internet. What these companies fail to mention is how the divorce rate in America right now is tragically high. In her 2013 piece, Analyzing divide From Cultural And intercommunicate Approaches, Tamara Afifi explains this tragic statistic. She discusses the many factors of such a high divorce rates, such as, the economy and also mentions the fact that this ca n 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.This can be seen in the media all the time, and most notably, Kim Kardashians incredibly short marriage to Kris Humphries. Tamara Afifi also goes on to explain the high costs of divorces and how lawyers benefit from this. 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. This suggests that even the marriage/divorce industry is succumbing to McDonaldization. The people behind dating websites are trying to run a company and are cerebrate on making money. In her piece, The harm of Love, Emi Berry explains how dating websites care nothing more than the profit they receive from people looking for love. She explains this best when she says, Money cant buy me love. Mon ey can, however, help find that love you seek via a dating service. date websites are pursuance the principles of McDonaldization. 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. Dan Slater, a former litigator, talked to several(prenominal) individuals, married, single, and going through divorce about online dating to better other stand the topic first hand, and make a list of common ideas that he attaind during his interviews.This list includes ideas such as, internet dating has made people more disposable. Internet dating may be partially responsible for a rise in the divorce rates. Low quality, distressed and unsatisfying marriages are being more visible due to Internet dating sites. Internet dating can help people of all ages realize that theres no need to settle for a med iocre relationship.(Slater) The rise of divorce caused by online relationships could be us to the idea of something seeming too good to be true. Like for example, when you see a McDonalds Big Mac on a commercial, it looks like a delicious, expertly-crafted burger, go to the store and order one however, and if you are expecting to see the same burger you saw in the pictures then you are about to be extremely let down. The same principles can apply to dating profiles. The good-looking 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. 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 ar e 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 bailiwick of online dating, all you really hear about in the media is the good and euphoric relationships that come out of this new technology. 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 machine-accessible 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. However, when behind a screen it is very easy to be something youre not, and with lack of actual interaction with the other person you are missing out on so much more. When you meet someone in person there is a connection that you get that is contrasted anything else t hat can be felt through a computer screen. So while online dating does have its benefits, it just seems that not only are there more negatives that can come out of online dating, but its also takes away what human interaction was left, especially in a world where everyday human interactions are slowly being replaced with electronics, self-checkout at the grocery store, atm machines, shopping, and now even something thats been well-nigh since the ancestor of time, companionship, is being computerized.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 needs taking over the way that most organizations are run. It is important to regard as this process, has its benefits, but also many negatives. With its principles of, efficiency, calculability, control and predictability, this supposition is becoming the new norm, faster than yo u may realize. This process is making the world more technological, and computerizing everything. You have to ask yourself, when is it too far? Should something thats been around as long as dating be something that is now done through technology? and is McDonaldization in fact, making the world a large place by isolating everyone behind their own computer screen?Works citedRitzer, George. An Introduction to McDonaldization. The McDonaldization of Society 7. Thousand Oaks, CA Sage, 2013. 1-20. Print. 19 Mar. 2014. Turner, Bryan. Does Anthropology mute Exist?. Society 45.3 (2008) 260-266. SocINDEX with Full Text. Web. 19 Mar. 2014.Afifi, Tamara D, et al. Analyzing Divorce From Cultural And Network Approaches. Journal Of Family Studies 19.3 (2013) 240-253. SocINDEX with Full Text. Web. 7 Apr. 2014. SLATER, DAN. A Million First Dates How Online Dating Is Threatening Monogamy. Atlantic Monthly (10727825) 311.1 (2013) 40-46. Literary Reference Center. Web. 7 Apr. 2014. BERRY, EMI. The P rice Of Love. Money (14446219) 162 (2013) 52. Business Source Complete. Web. 7 Apr. 2014.