Facebook “hook-ups” lead to rise in syphilis
Posted March 24, 2010 5:35 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Call it the downside of social networking.
British researchers have established a link between the use Facebook, and an alarming resurgence of syphilis.
Researchers say the popular website and other social networking tools have given people a new way to meet multiple partners for casual sexual encounters.
Many people at Yonge/Dundas Square told 680News they had never hooked up with someone over the internet, but many said they had friends who have.
One man commented that with the popularity of sites like Facebook, a lot of the small talk and other aspects of social courtship have been taken out out of the dating world.
One young woman said she opened her Facebook profile one day to find a man asking her out, claiming the two had met at a party.
However, when asked “Would you would date someone who asked you out on Facebook?” there seemed to be a gender split. More women told 680News they would not, and find advances from men online “kinda creepy”, while most of the men asked seem open to the idea.
