Online Dating Gains Popularity Among High School Students to Avoid Complications
Nonfiction writer Kota Ishii takes a close look at society and events! Shocking Reportage
What kind of person do you imagine when you hear the term “online lover”?
In recent years, it’s become quite common among young people for romantic relationships to be completed entirely online. More and more people are handling everything from meeting to confessing feelings and going on dates exclusively online.
A teacher working at a high school in Tokyo says:
“Our high school is in Tokyo, and there’s always at least one student in the class who talks about having a partner they only interact with online. All communication happens solely through online messages, and they never meet in person. The partner’s location varies, with some students having ‘online lovers’ in places like Kyushu or Hokkaido. From this phenomenon alone, it seems like just a change in the concept or method of dating. However, this has actually led to various troubles.”
According to the teacher, the view on romance among young people has significantly changed, especially due to the COVID-19 pandemic. What kind of new problems are arising as a result?
The recent book, Report: How Smartphone Parenting Destroys Children (Shinchosha), interviews over 200 education professionals from preschools to universities, highlighting the impact of modern society’s new environment on children. From this book, we’d like to introduce the current issues and troubles related to online relationships among today’s youth.
Currently, it’s said that one in five adults is marrying someone they met through a matching app. For adults, the process of romance typically involves meeting on the app, exchanging messages a few times, and then meeting in person.
In contrast, the way today’s middle and high school students meet online seems to be somewhat different. They rarely use matching apps. Instead, they connect through social media by following people they like based on their profiles or posted images, or by sending direct messages.
This shift, where social media has replaced traditional communication tools, seems natural in the current era. However, what is causing confusion among school teachers is the existence of “online lovers” that comes after this.
Even if They’ve Never Met, They Call Them ‘Boyfriend’ or ‘Girlfriend’
A high school teacher interviewed for the book says:
“Among today’s students, there are those who insist on calling someone ‘boyfriend’ or ‘girlfriend’ even if they have never met in person. It’s understandable for long-distance relationships, but there are cases where they live within a reasonable distance and could meet if they wanted to, yet they only communicate online. When asked, they say things like it doesn’t cost anything for dates or they don’t want to risk being disliked in person. It seems they choose to limit their relationship to just online interactions to avoid the complications of meeting directly.”
Certainly, interacting via smartphones incurs minimal costs and avoids seeing or being seen in inconvenient situations. In other words, the cost-performance and time-performance are favorable. As a result, students are opting to engage in relationships exclusively through social media.
From the perspective of the older generation, it might seem necessary to point out that you can’t truly understand someone without meeting them. However, for young people who have grown up with smartphones, it’s natural to view this method as cost-effective and convenient.
Nevertheless, what teachers are concerned about is the other issues that arise from this situation, particularly those related to sexual matters.
Next is a story from a high school teacher in Aichi Prefecture.
“In Aichi Prefecture, we conducted a large-scale survey on sexual matters among high school students. We found something surprising. There was a question asking how long it took to become romantically involved after meeting for the first time. For the options limited to within one month, the most common response was ‘the same day we met.'”
For detailed data, please refer to Report: How Smartphone Parenting Destroys Children. The responses to the question of ‘how long after meeting did you become romantically involved?’ can be found in the ‘High School Students’ Sexual Behavior Survey 2019.’
・Same day: 14.3% of males, 17.7% of females
・Within one week: 9.6% of males, 4.4% of females
・Within one to two weeks: 8.5% of males, 5.8% of females
・Within one to two months: 11.2% of males, 13% of females
Looking at these figures, it’s clear that the same day we met stands out significantly.
Why does this phenomenon occur among young people who often struggle with real-life relationships? Here’s a direct quote from a teacher interviewed for the book:
“When we asked, it became clear that high school students meet their partners online, confess their feelings online, and start their relationships online. They spend months building their relationship in the online world. However, to become romantically involved, they must meet in person.
Thus, when they finally decide to meet in real life, they often go straight to a hotel or similar place to engage in sexual activity. This is why the response ‘the same day we met’ appears frequently in the survey. According to them, while it’s their first time seeing each other’s faces in person, they have already been in an online relationship up to that point.”
In other words, they handle everything from meeting and confessing to dating online, and since further intimacy requires an in-person meeting, they end up engaging in those activities on the same day they meet.
As this survey was conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic, the teacher mentioned that it is clear this trend has likely increased since then.
“Feeling Betrayed”
Of course, if the person met in this way is trustworthy, there wouldn’t be any issues. However, high school students often lack the ability to judge character deeply, leading to countless troubles arising from such interactions.
A high school teacher in Hyogo Prefecture says:
“Our students often say things like ‘I felt deceived when I actually met in person.’ Since they’ve only interacted with the other person online before, they discover things that differ from their expectations when they meet face-to-face. They describe this as being ‘deceived’ or ‘betrayed.’ From a logical standpoint, it’s not that they were deceived but rather that they were imprudent.
While discovering that the other person’s appearance or personality differs from what they imagined might not be a major issue, in more severe cases, it can lead to situations where they are asked for money or subjected to violence. Particularly for female students, who are more likely to be lured by older individuals, the risks and potential for serious harm are higher.”
The teacher mentioned that there have been cases where female students at their school became victims of crimes through online interactions.
In reality, troubles involving online interactions have been increasing year by year. According to the National Police Agency’s “Crime Situation for 2023,” there were at least 1,663 minors who were victims of crimes related to social media. Clearly, this number represents only the tip of the iceberg.
So, where do these misunderstandings among young people arise? We will continue to explore this in detail in the next part: “Exploring High School Relationships and the Meaning Behind Sofure and Birifures”
Part 2: “Exploring High School Relationships and the Meaning Behind Sofure and Birifures”
Interview and text by： Kota Ishii
Born in Tokyo in 1977. Nonfiction writer. He has reported and written about culture, history, and medicine in Japan and abroad. His books include "Absolute Poverty," "The Body," "The House of 'Demons'," "43 Killing Intent," "Let's Talk about Real Poverty," "Social Map of Disparity and Division," and "Reporto: Who Kills Japanese Language Ability?
