Workshop 4: Menu Driven Identities

Question 2
What sort of 'identities' are visible in the profiles on Lavalife? How are they displayed? What presumptions does this display make about both the people reading these profiles and those users who made them?

The identities on Lavalife of course are very stereotypical - since they are only set up for one reason, namely meeting people (for whatever purpose), they try to attract attention. They display themselves as accessible and sympathetic as possible within the realms given by the design of the website. Since all of the info is rather short and superficial the users probably did not spend much time setting it up and the people who read it can just browse the website like a catalogue...IMO Dating sites like this are just as superficial and fast-moving as our society in general.

Question 3
How much of the "identity" that we can see online for the users on Lavalife is restricted by the overall design of the website? What changes would you suggest in order to "improve" the sorts of identity Lavalife users can construct?

To be honest, I think that Lavalife is not exceptional in the way it is set up and I cannot really see an inherent problem of internet dating sites here in the question of the restriction of information that is given on the profiles due to the set up of the websites. I mean, if you take a look at the newspapers in the "lonely hearts ads" section you pretty much see the same thing: very basic information on the people looking for contacts. Height, weight, age, looks, hobbies, smoker/drinker, etc. Here, it is not the set up that restricts the info given, but probably the price for the ads as well as common conventions how such a thing should look. At least on Lavalife people can add more information on their profiles than people in newspapers can. To me sites like Lavalife are again just proof of the fact that we seem to adapt structures from real life into cyberspace. This of course does not make the information given on- or offline any better, it just shows that we're not seem to be able to break with our habits.
I think the site could be improved by giving people the opportunity to write about them whatever they want - without having to answer preset questions. Maybe like that people could really get to know each other instead of choosing their potential partner by skin-color or religion.