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Catfishing: A Look into Online Dating and Impersonation

Mariah Simmons ; Joon Suk Lee (2020) — Lecture Notes in Computer Science

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-49570-1_24 (opens in a new tab)

Type:   Journal Article
Country:   United States
Tags:   Catfishing, Identity Deception, Online Dating, Online Impersonation, Phishing, Social Media
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Synopsis

            
The study aims to investigate catfishing and online impersonation and to clarify how these phenomena relate to phishing and online dating. The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with sixteen college students from Virginia State University to explore participants’ experiences with online dating, social media use, catfishing, online impersonation, and phishing, and to understand how people perceive the relationships among these terms. Using a thematic analysis of interview data, the study found that most participants were familiar with the terms but had varying understandings of their distinctions. Eleven participants perceived online impersonation, catfishing, and phishing as related, while six attempted to rank their relationships, with some placing phishing at the top of a hierarchy. About nine participants reported being victims of catfishing, three identified themselves as catfish, and several experienced impersonation or account hacking across platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Tinder, and other dating or chat services. The catfish cases described ranged from using fake profiles for romantic strings to cases driven by monetary gain, with motivations including curiosity, suspicion about a partner, or financial need. The paper discusses how catfishing is a growing, evolving threat and notes limitations, including a small, specific sample limited to a Historically Black College and University setting. The authors acknowledge that the findings are constrained by the study’s scope and emphasize that catfishing and related online deception remain under-explored in human-comcomputer interaction research, while highlighting the need for broader investigation of how these online threats affect user behavior and trust in online dating platforms.

          

        
                  

            
Identified Gaps

            
The paper identifies limited HCI research on catfishing and notes that many studies of online dating, television portrayals, and legal issues have not adequately examined how catfishing affects users. It also finds that participants lacked consensus about distinctions among catfishing, online impersonation, and phishing. The evolving nature of catfishing and potential technology-enabled variations remain insufficiently understood.

          

        
                  

            
Methods

            
The study used semi-structured, primarily in-person interviews with 16 social media and online-dating users recruited from Virginia State University, supplemented by snowball sampling. One participant completed an online questionnaire. Interviews lasted 15–45 minutes, were audio-recorded and transcribed, and demographic data were collected before participation. The authors conducted iterative thematic analysis, developing an initial coding scheme jointly and identifying recurrent patterns in accounts of catfishing, impersonation, phishing, and prevention.

          

        
                  

            
Limitations

            
The findings are based on only 16 participants, including just three self-identified catfish. The sample was primarily Virginia State University students at a Historically Black College and University, limiting coverage of the broader range of ages and ethnicities represented among social media and online-dating users. Accounts were self-reported, and some alleged catfishing cases could not be independently verified.

          

        
                  

            
Future Work

            
Further research is needed on catfishing because it remains underexplored in HCI. Research should include broader age and ethnic groups and more people who have engaged in catfishing, beyond this small college-based sample. The paper also suggests examining emerging forms of identity deception enabled by technologies such as DeepFake.

          

              

    
    

        
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