[chbrules]

We're supposed to do a little research project on social trends in my sociology class I'm taking this summer and I'm doing mine on women and online relationships. I chose to use Craig's List for my data. What I'm doing is going through the Women looking for Men dating and casual sex sections and comparing and contrasting my findings, as well as comparing my hypothesis to my actual findings. I don't know if anyone is interested in any of this, but I figure I'll post it anyway.

Here are the samples from the first day of research (6/23):




I first hypothesized that in the dating scene (first graph) that there would be more older women than younger looking for dating. My reasoning was that as women age their social and primitive instincts tell them they need to reproduce, and they become more desperate. Quite the contrary I've found more younger people looking for online love. My explanation thusfar is that younger people may be more willing to reach out to internet culture to find a partner since it is more socially acceptable than it is for an older woman.

My hypothesis for the 'casual encounters,' or sexual encounters, came out to be about what I was expecting. As women reach sexual peak in their mid 20's they will find that the testosterone will affect their reasoning and logic and allow them to be more free and open about sexual experiences, especially considering that online/digital culture is more accepting of their age group as of now.

I still have another 2 weeks of data gathering to do, but I think these are some interesting trends. I'm going to have to write a 10 page paper on my findings. Fun stuff. Well, that's not entirely sarcastic, I find it somewhat interesting.

[PresaMat]

LoL you cant take posts on craiglists as real. 99% of the posts on there are spam/fake posts.

[chicagolab]

+1, how can it take into account that many men are looking for that age group so the scams are even more pronounced in these ages. The real vs. fake posts(scam, spam, prostitution) are the unknown quantity.

just make sure you use a disclaimer about finding a general trend and not necessarily accounting for fake, spam, scam, etc.. If you do not expect to be railed by your professor

[TMNT]

Originally Posted by chbrules

My hypothesis for the 'casual encounters,' or sexual encounters, came out to be about what I was expecting. As women reach sexual peak in their mid 20's

Most findings I have read/heard about state that most women peak in the early 30's.

You might want to double check before finalizing any conclusions. Good luck on the research.