Mumbai, January 27: THE Internet seems to have become the quickest way to make new friends and even find dating partners. An extensive survey recently carried out in several cities by CyberForensics India, a Mumbai-based private firm specialising in Net security, has revealed that a lot more people are meeting online and tend to exchange their telephone numbers within two to three chat sessions with a fellow stranger on the Net, almost always of the opposite sex.

In the last two months, CyberForensics interviewed over 1,500 people between 14 and 45 years in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Ahmedabad. The method of interviews was either on phone, personal or by dispatching sample questionnaires.

‘‘We basically wanted to find out how people tend to interact on the Net, without being judgmental, and what are the main sites and services they use. Some of our survey results have surprised us too — for example, 60 per cent of the male respondents and 50 per cent females admitted to having had an affair with at least one of their online friends,’’ remarked Flynn Remedios of CyberForensics.

Also, around 60 per cent of the respondents had met in person at least 40 per cent of their online pals. This is mainly because they were curious to know what their virtual buddies actually looked like.

Of the 1,500 respondents, 900 were females and 600 were males. Some of the other conclusions through this survey were: more people are meeting online; more people are getting into relationships after meeting online, and about 50 per cent of them admitted to a physical relationships with at least one online partner, whom they met only online and that too in a cold-call (unsolicited message to a person in a chat room for the purpose of building online friendship).

Of the married people in the survey, about 70 per cent admitted to having a physical relationship at least once outside their marriage with an online partner.

Analysing the results, another member of CyberForesnics, Jennifer Vishnoi, said that she was not very surprised by the findings. ‘‘Most of us already knew this was happening, but were not sure we wanted to say it aloud,’’ she said. However, this comprehensive study has proved that the Internet is the ‘‘mating medium’’ of the 21st century, added Remedios.

According to him, one must look beyond this. ‘‘The actual reasons for such online behaviour are loneliness and depression. People are having problems with their mind, which in turn are fuelled by the competitive nature of today’s lifestyle,’’ he reasoned.

A Mumbai-based sexologist, Dr S Malde, who had earlier carried out a cyber survey, explained that people are being pushed to the edge and are looking for alternatives elsewhere. Once it was the telly tube, today it’s the Net. According to Dr Malde, cyber sex is becoming an alternative to actual sex, because the anonymity of the Net shields the victim and you see only what you want to see.