An ongoing study involving UF wants to know how students use the Internet to hook up.
About 5,000 UF students were chosen randomly to receive the questionnaire about what sites they use and how they use them when looking for sex and relationships.
"We are trying to understand how we can use some of these online sites to incorporate messages about sexual health safety," said Robert Cook, an associate professor at UF who is working on the study.
Questions on the survey are open-ended to find out as much as possible about the little-studied field, Cook said.
"We're going in, at this point, fairly open-minded," he said.
Cook expects to find heavy usage of Facebook, Myspace, Craigslist and other more dating-specific Web sites.
The Florida Center for AIDS Research paid for the $15,000 study.
The University of South Florida and Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University each provided several thousand students for the study, which is led by a USF professor.
Participants should expect to receive at least four e-mails asking them to participate before the study closes on May 15. About one-third of those who've been asked to participate have responded.
"We apologize to people for being annoying," Cook said.
