James Clark School of Engineering found that chat room participants with female usernames received 25 times more threatening and/or sexually explicit private messages than those with male or ambiguous usernames.

Female usernames, on average, received 163 malicious private messages a day in the study, conducted by Michel Cukier, assistant professor in the Center for Risk and Reliability in the Clark School's Department of Mechanical Engineering, and an affiliate of the university's Institute for Systems Research, and sophomore computer engineering student Robert Meyer.

In much the same way that fast foods offer quick, easy satiety or comfort but can damage the body via refined sugars, sodium, and cholesterol, hookup apps offer quick connection but can damage the psyche — and the body. According to a study published in 2006 in , 53.4 percent of Americans have no close friends or confidants outside of their immediate family, which is troubling as it’s up 17 percent since 1985.

Breaking: Sometimes men pretend to be women online! ” psychologist John Suler lays out a handful of theories.

There’s something, presumably, for any craving or type.

Some gay men use these apps out of boredom, chatting endlessly with no intention of meeting, while others are horny and benefit from the promise of a convenient hookup.

Do you dread having to listen to people debate whether the long-awaited third season honors or tarnishes the legacy of something that was canceled before Hillary Clinton’s husband was even President?

Mobile geolocation dating apps are relatively new (Grindr was launched in 2009), but unlike the desktop online experience of chat rooms and forums, the mobility of the mobile app means it can be used at the office, or on the toilet, or at dinner with your parents, or even at a gay bar. The app offers access to one million men at any given moment, according to Ansley Brown, a representative for Grindr at PR Consulting, and the men are of all ages, races, and body types.

The study focused on internet relay chat or IRC chat rooms, which are among the most popular chat services but offer widely varying levels of user security.

The researchers logged into various chatrooms under female, male and ambiguous usernames, counted the number of times they were contacted and tracked the contents of those messages.

Here’s the latest “Parents, Please Commence Freaking Out” video.

It reminds me of the Joey Salads video, obviously, but also of the parents who had their 6 year old snatched, blindfolded and led down into a basement where the “kidnapper” threatened to nail him to the wall — all to teach him not to talk to strangers.