Nowadays, almost everyone has a “digital” personality. It consists of many elements — social media profile design, posts, likes and comments, forum posts, photos in online albums, uploaded videos, and so on. We leave digital footprints almost every time we go online, and that’s completely normal.
Another interesting piece of information is that surveys show that about 50% of people who meet someone online carefully check out that “digital” personality. The main goal is to better understand what kind of person they are looking at, and whether it’s worth continuing to communicate with them and try to develop a relationship. And of course that’s completely normal too!
What you can find out about someone online and why it’s worth doing
Finding out details about a person online is more common than you think — companies, for instance, regularly perform background checks on employees. There are also a myriad of other reasons to perform online checks, right from finding business partners or a date.
But can you check a person, and make sure they are normal (and real!) if you only have a smartphone or computer to hand? It’s not so hard, and it’s sufficient to spend only a little time learning more about your new acquaintance.
So let’s look at a few effective ways to find out about a person:
- Search using Google, social networks and instant messengers
This is the most obvious method of finding out information about a person. If you have the name and surname, it’s easy to find pages and user accounts on a variety of sites. But sometimes, without specifying those search parameters, finding a person isn’t so easy. It is advisable to find out their city of residence, age (at least approximately — to refine the search on social networks), nickname used, etc.
- Search by photo
Google has a handy image search function. You can download a photo of your chat partner, upload it to a search engine and find where else the photo is used. If the person is real, most likely you’ll find links to their social networks, blog entries, etc. In this way. If they’re faking, the picture may lead you to the profile page of a completely different user or even to a stock photo.
- Phonebook search
Don’t be surprised if this method, although rather dated, gives results. In phone books, you can find the name and surname of a person, their phone number and even address. Don’t neglect this opportunity.
What to look for when studying information about a person on the Internet
Let’s say you were able to find the accounts of a new acquaintance on social networks. What should you pay attention to?
- See what the person is posting on their accounts, not only the latest entries, but also dig deeper into older posts. If there’s anything alarming, it is worth considering whether you are ready to communicate with this person.
- Examine the list of pages and groups to which the person is subscribed. They can tell a lot about the interests, tastes and even quirks of your new acquaintance.
- Take a look at the photos and videos the person is tagged in, for example, on Facebook and Instagram. This is important because what a person posts and what their friends post can be very different.
- Pay attention to the “age” of a person’s social media accounts. If they are new and almost empty, chances are they are fake.
- If you have time, try to find which pages and groups a person is active on, how they communicate with other people, what comments they leave, etc. This will help to form a more objective opinion about them.
Ultimately, the more information about a new acquaintance you get from the Internet, the better. And there are much fewer risks that the first real meeting will bring you unpleasant surprises.
But what if there is no information about a person on the Internet at all?
In that case, there are two options:
- You simply haven’t searched thoroughly enough, or the information available to you is too scarce to search effectively.
- You are communicating with a fake about which it is physically impossible to find real information. Their whole personality is fiction.
There are also situations when a person meets someone on a dating site, and asks for a link to social networks, but is refused. The other person says that they are not registered on social networks, but actually this is nonsense. It is very difficult to believe that a person uses dating sites but ignores social networks. Especially in our time, when social networks are used by almost literally everyone. Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn — a person should be findable at least somewhere other than a dating site.
How to simplify your life and meet new people on the Internet without any hassle
Of course, the most effective way to get to know a person better is to meet them in person, chat and spend some time together. But this is not always possible. The other person may live in another city or country, may simply not have enough time for a live date, or are in no hurry to meet new people before they know them well enough.
There is another way — communication using video chats. During the pandemic, many popular dating sites and apps introduced a video chat function so that users can communicate not only by text, but also by video. This is a great opportunity to make sure that you’re talking to a real person, get to know each other faster and see if there’s an attraction.
You can use random video chats like Omegle as an alternative to classic dating sites, or alternatives to Omegle such as https://coomeet.com/omegle or Tinychat. The latter offer wider functionality and allow you to use flexible settings when searching for new people. For example, in CooMeet you can only chat with girls, while in Tinychat you can start an online broadcast and gather a large group of viewers.
There are a lot of alternatives to Omegle today — both paid and free. You can choose a platform that will fully satisfy your needs and allow you to communicate with interesting new people every day. And most importantly, it makes it possible to get to know the other person much better than when chatting via messenger or on a social network. Try random video chats if you haven’t used them yet. We are sure you’ll enjoy them. And perhaps they will completely replace ordinary dating sites for you.
Checking someone out is normal, not paranoid
Believe us when we say that in our times it is better to be a little paranoid than too gullible and naive. Online dating comes with some risks. You should not rush to an offline date with the first person you meet from the Internet. And even more so, you must not transfer money to a person you barely know, or share any confidential information about yourself, your loved ones, friends or colleagues.
We hope that all your online meetings will be pleasant and promising, and you will never need our advice. But you still need to be realistic. Your safety and the safety of your data on the Internet should be your first concern. So remain vigilant and be attentive to those you still don’t know well.