I agree with what most people have said here.
I had a bad experience with online dating back when I was 18 and started chatting to another sunning 18 year old from Liverpool!
After an age of emailing - texting - phoning, a pervy mate found the pictures that she had supplied me with on an american model website and when she confessed, she turned out to be a 32 yr old married thing with 5 kids! Although that didn't stop me travelling to L'Pool to do the deed!

I thought it would help me to be able to get over being able to talk to the other sex and although i could hold an amazing conversation over the keyboard, it still didn't help me chat to a real physical women when out and about because I still had AA and still had the negative voices when i actually saw them.
So for me it didn't work and i didn't progress, i was still a chode only with a secret online identity.
Now a days i won't even consider online dating.

On the flip side, i have a mate who swears by plentyoffish.com he found his current girlfriend on there and was seeing loads of different girls on it and in a very short space of time but all the ones that he introduced us to all seem to be 5/10's or the good ones had some kind of mental issue, lol!