

There's No Evidence Online Dating Is Threatening Commitment or Marriage - scottkduncan
http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/13/01/theres-no-evidence-online-dating-is-threatening-commitment-or-marriage/266797/

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rayiner
If anything I think the opposite is true. Guys online are far more interested
in relationships than guys on the bar circuit and other such places.

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jonathanjaeger
That's a good point. On average, a single guy out with his friends at a bar or
club and with a few drinks in him on a Friday night is thinking about one
thing. Yeah, maybe he would be great boyfriend material otherwise, but on that
Friday night he's thinking about one thing (or at least mostly one thing).
That same average guy on a dating site without those other dynamics might act
differently.

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mr_luc
First, it seems like both articles say "there's no real data, but ...", so I
wonder why both articles are on the front page of Hacker News. I guess this
article deserves the upvotes, though, because it points out that fact in its
title.

Second, I notice that the few stats in this article refer to "using Internet
to find partners," and the question isn't about partners but length of
partnership.

Third, this article reminds me of the 'industry rebuttal' to one of pg's
essays - the one about how glossy magazines all cost the same - which cried
out to a whole industry "please rebut this." Someone had to publish a
rebuttal, so someone did - although their 'rebuttal' was basically just
pointing out that Sarah Palin's new book sold a lot of copies.

In this case, the industry is the online dating industry. This article is the
industry rebuttal. It happens to be correct, but there's just something weird
about this kind of article to me, and the eHarmony shirts in the accompanying
picture smell of PR.

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return0
Certainly there is a cause-and effect misunderstanding if one says that online
dating is threatening monogamy. Monogamy is in crisis for decades as divorce
rates (and sex tourism, and the rise of the man-o-sphere) show, and there
doesn't seem to be a reversing trend. Online dating is just capitalizing on
the trend, nothing more. It's very probable that in the not too distant future
commitment will lose its high social value. The question is if societies are
prepared in order to avoid side casualties (children).

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Pkeod
If anyone has not been exposed to Girl Writes What I highly recommend her. A
video by her on the marriage topic:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlvMAS_20K4>

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Tichy
Does she have a blog or something? Video is too slow.

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mistercow
I like that this article focuses on the word "commitment" rather than
"monogamy", instead of conflating them like the first article did.

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danso
> _Narratively, the story focuses on Jacob, an overgrown manchild jackass who
> can't figure out what it takes to have a real relationship. The problem,
> however, is not him, and his desire for a "low-maintenance" woman who is
> hot, young, interested in him, and doesn't mind that he is callow and
> doesn't care very much about her. No, the problem is online dating, which
> has shown Jacob that he can have a steady stream of mediocre dates, some of
> whom will have sex with him._

I basically stopped reading at the ad hominem. An article that claims to be
about "evidence" clearly is not if it needs to win reader approval by bashing
the opposing subject. This was a theme in the Atlantic's comments section of
the article in question, too.

We can't tell if Jacob is truly a "douche" or not. The last article was all
about him but mainly focused on his dating life and not other circumstances of
it. And he sounds like an average male professional...what seems offensive is
that we're more privy to his desires and decisions and as they say,
familiarity breeds contempt.

The OP also blasts the article for not including a single female voice. If
we're trying to make an objective evaluation of the effect of online dating,
then it does not matter if the article is single gender (either male or
female). If it can be argued convincingly that one-half of a couple has much
more incentive to leave, then that by definition is enough to have an effect
on traditional relationships, no matter what the other gender thinks

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mattchew
> We can't tell if Jacob is truly a "douche" or not.

He had a girlfriend for five years and didn't marry her, and then had a
girlfriend for two years and didn't marry her. That doesn't mean he's a
douche, but he's not much of a prize either.

I suppose this attitude is a generation or more out of date. But it sure looks
to me like the younger generation is screwing it up bad. Guess I'd better get
some signs to post on my lawn.

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NickPollard
What's wrong with having a girlfriend for five years and not marrying her? It
might be unusual, but it's not wrong. Some people aren't into marriage. Some
people like to wait - my brother was in a relationship over 10 years before he
proposed (and is now happily married). Don't judge everyone by your own ideas.

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rayiner
I know some people like that. But to be honest, I know a lot more couples
where the guy just kicks the can down the road, paralyzed at the thought of
sleeping with the same woman forever. Which is fine, except when they deflect
instead of being forthright about their feelings and letting the woman decide
whether to keep going.

~~~
Tichy
Isn't it statistically most often the woman who breaks up? I suspect that
might be because it is easier for women to find new partners.

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ScottBurson
_And more choices mean less satisfaction. For example, if you give people more
chocolate bars to choose from, the story tells us, they think the one they
choose tastes worse than a control group who had a smaller selection._

Huh. It's the opposite for me -- the more possibilities I can check out, the
better I feel about my choice in the end. (Maybe that's one reason I didn't
marry until age 42 :-) HN readers -- do you agree with this study, or not?

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jvm
The study didn't find that this was true in every case. It found that it was
more often true than false in the task that they chose. I'm not totally up on
this literature but I'm fairly sure that it's been replicated repeatedly in a
variety of domains.

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ScottBurson
Oh, I don't doubt that it's true of most people. I'm interested in the next
question: are there interesting characteristics shared by people that this
isn't true of?

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lucian1900
There's also no evidence cats can levitate.

I don't get it.

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kordless
Wow. Alexis Madrigal is a massively negative person. I refuse to read anything
with such tone.

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npsimons
I have to ask, is there anyone who honestly believed this?

