Social taboo of meeting online now firmly broken

Social taboo of meeting online now firmly broken
New study reveals that 85% of us would meet someone we have chatted to online

21st October 2011: The stigma attached to meeting people online has become a thing of the past according to new research just released from Badoo.com, the world’s fastest growing Social Network for meeting new people.

Two in three people are friends with or have dated someone they’ve met online and a resounding majority of 85% of people around the world would use the internet to meet new people if they moved to a new area. 

Only 14% of people prefer to meet new friends and partners the old fashioned way and less than a third of people are yet to chat to someone online and then arrange to meet them in person. 

And it is the Spanish who are leading the way with almost 80% of the population having met someone that they had only chatted to online previously. Further afield, it is the Brazilians (69.6%), the French (70%), and the Italians (69%) who have done the most online meeting, either platonically or romantically. Brits (66%) follow behind and the Americans take the place of most conservative nation at 58.9%.

Lloyd Price, a spokesman for Badoo.com who carried out the study, said: "Traditionally, meeting people online was slightly taboo; it was perhaps seen as for women and men of a certain age who had been unlucky in love. 

"However, it is clear now that more and more people see the benefits of meeting online. Life is so busy, people go to bars and parties to catch up with friends and don’t want to use that precious time meeting new people; they’d prefer online meeting networks to do the work for them."

“Plus, the advantages of location based social networks means that people can chat to and meet people in their local area. We’ve seen such demand at Badoo.com with a significant increase in mobile downloads in the past six months,”

The study of 12,000 18 to 59 year olds from Brazil, Spain, France, Italy, the UK and the USA revealed that more than half (66 per cent) know someone who’s met their current partner online.