
Evidence That Online Dating Is Changing Society - dtawfik1
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609091/first-evidence-that-online-dating-is-changing-the-nature-of-society/
======
ScottBurson
My wife and I met online in 1992. Not on a dating site; we were both posting
to a Usenet group, alt.psychology.personality. She had posted that she was
trying to figure out whether she was a Five or a Six in the Enneagram system
of personality analysis. My first words to her, in a private email, were
"Well, do you have a bigger problem with depression or paranoia?" Ha! How's
_that_ for a smooth come-on line?? :-)

~~~
hi5eyes
any site with a text field is a dating site

~~~
zaat
> site

the year is 1992, the couple are posting to Usenet. What is this site thing
you mentioned?

Get off my lawn

~~~
stevekemp
The year is 1984, the couple are exchanging messages via a public CeeFax
channel..

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceefax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceefax)

Get off my dad's lawn ;)

~~~
rjsw
Ceefax was read only.

~~~
stevekemp
You could phone up and get your message(s) included in local pages.

Also there were personals which involved writing your advert, and the ceefax
service working as a PO box to route letters.

------
drcross
This ignores the far bigger reaching impact of online dating, that which
includes some uncomfortable gender dynamics for hetrosexuals; The top
percentage of men get the lions share of the dating options and presumably
more frequent sex with no reason to commit to the ladies in question while
lower tier men suffer disillusionment from their lack of options. The OK Cupid
blog page is a filled with these sorts of nuggets, such as women rate 80% of
guys as worse-looking than the medium: [https://theblog.okcupid.com/your-
looks-and-your-inbox-8715c0...](https://theblog.okcupid.com/your-looks-and-
your-inbox-8715c0f1561e)

~~~
ohyes
>The top percentage of men get the lions share of the dating options and
presumably more frequent sex with no reason to commit to the ladies in
question while lower tier men suffer disillusionment from their lack of
options.

This tacitly implies that women are sex objects and that men only seek them
out as such. I find that offensive, but more so than that, sad.

You'd also have to prove that online dating has 'caused' this effect, and what
you've posted is a complete lack of evidence, at best.

It could simply be that many women have better career options and don't have
to settle for early marriage to whichever man in a bid for financial security
and social acceptance, or changing attitudes towards more casual sexual
encounters, or a number of other things.

~~~
merpnderp
As somewhat more intelligent primates you can rest assured that sex is a
primary male driver in seeking the attention of women, if not the only reason.
Let’s not ignore a million years of biological inperative and assume a few
hundred years of civilization has changed us.

~~~
amluto
Are you suggesting that men have no reason whatsoever to seek the attention of
men and that sex is the only reason for men to seek the attention of women? If
so, I'm reasonably confident I can find plenty of counterexamples.

~~~
xor1
The majority of modern men who use (resort to?) dating apps are seeking
companionship first and foremost, and being left wanting.

Which is fine and completely fair, of course. Not everyone deserves
companionship. Not everyone deserves happiness, or even a base level of
satisfaction.

~~~
blowski
> Not everyone deserves happiness, or even a base level of satisfaction.

Can you expand on that. It’s unclear what you mean by “deserves”.

~~~
xor1
No one should expect to be happy. Happiness is not guaranteed.

~~~
blowski
I agree that happiness is not guaranteed, but also think everyone deserves it,
even if they don’t get it. Small distinction, but to imply that someone
perhaps suffering from depression or stuck in really terrible circumstances
doesn’t even deserve happiness sounds very harsh.

~~~
ikeyany
Why does everyone deserve happiness? That's nonsense. There are some really
horrible people out there who refuse to change.

~~~
ameister14
'God Almighty himself is under the necessity of being happy; and the more any
thinking being is under that necessity, the nearer it comes to infinite
perfection and happiness.'

------
harshaw
I am 42 and got married (for the second time) a couple of months ago. After
getting a divorce I worked my butt off on okCupid to meet my wife. I made it a
full time gig and I am happy with the results.

Besides finding a great life parter, one of the most surprising results is
what is hinted at but not really discussed in the article. She brought a
completely new social circle into my life. Although we are the same age
(Roughly) and have lived in Boston for the last 20 years, the Venn diagram of
our circle of friends didn't overlap.

My perception is that my social life is much more interesting at this point
because of this, rather than my College friends, many of whom married their
college parters.

------
abalone
It's still just a correlation, and there's a problem with the article:

 _Of course, there are other factors that could contribute to the increase in
interracial marriage.... [But] “The change in the population composition in
the U.S. cannot explain the huge increase in intermarriage that we observe,”
say Ortega and Hergovich._

 _That leaves online dating as the main driver of this change._

Except there are more than two possible explanations for this correlation. For
example, attitudes towards interracial marriage may have changed in the past
couple decades. Therefore this is faulty logic (on the part of the author who
wrote this summary, who is different from the researchers).

The study makes a good case for online dating playing a role, but it falls
short of establishing it as "the main driver."

~~~
0xcde4c3db
> attitudes towards interracial marriage may have changed in the past couple
> decades

That's an understatement. According to Gallup polls, Americans approving of
interracial marriage were a _minority_ until the mid '90s, and the last poll
in 2013 showed 87% approval [1].

[1] [http://news.gallup.com/poll/163697/approve-marriage-
blacks-w...](http://news.gallup.com/poll/163697/approve-marriage-blacks-
whites.aspx)

~~~
ntsplnkv2
polls like this really make you wonder though.

I know a lot of people that are "okay" with interracial marriage, but also
hope their kids do not marry someone of another race.

------
Mz
I think they are missing an important detail.

Online dating doesn't simply connect you to "new" people. It connects you to
them _privately_. It is a setting in which you and you alone need to judge
this person and how suitable they are as a partner for you.

I grew up in the Deep South. * I attended public school. I had non-white
classmates. I knew guys who were Black or Hispanic who were interested in me.

But, I had no path forward.

In a racist environment, just talking to someone of color in a flirty way will
get significant social push back. You have to be willing and able to stand
your ground in order to pursue the relationship at all. People don't want to
deal with something like that at the curiosity stage. Its very existence helps
kill relationships before they can begin. It is just too much drama and makes
it too hard to navigate the relationship.

Online dating lets you talk to people without all that. It lets you say "Hi!"
and flirt without deciding five minutes after you met them that standing down
the entire world is a thing you are up for.

No one in their right mind is up for that just to have coffee. You commit to
that at the marriage stage, not at the making eyes at each other stage. If you
have to make that decision before you can even chat them up, 99 percent of the
time the decision will be to not chat them up to begin with.

Edit: I will add that the privacy angle is likely a large factor in why online
dating has been so popular for starting homosexual relationships.

* A long time ago. Hopefully, it's better now.

~~~
ams6110
> just talking to someone of color in a flirty way will get significant social
> push back.

This will be true in almost any public school anywhere.

~~~
Kluny
Another Canadian here. Can confirm, white people dating people of other colors
does not inspire any particular comment, in school or elsewhere.

~~~
ycombinete
It will be true anywhere where a difference in color can be expected to
correspond with a large cultural difference in partners.

------
Overtonwindow
Online dating has diluted the decision making requirements of dating. Rather
than getting to know someone, over time, dating websites allow us to flip
through massive numbers of people. With this impression that there are massive
numbers of people to choose from, it tricks us into believing we can be more
selective, and dismissive of attributes. These websites, IMO, have the
negative affect of giving us "too much" choice, and so people never settle or
make choices, or take chances.

~~~
gozur88
They don't give us too much choice. They give us the illusion of more choice.
If everybody has more people to choose from, it increases the probability the
people you find interesting won't be interested in you.

~~~
csomar
I disagree. Online dating empowers those at the top tier. By a _lot_.

------
ransom1538
A fun math question (interview?): let's say you want to meet someone and you
are in a bar in SF. What are the odds?

1) The population of sf 800,000.

2) Ok, but 1/2 the population isn't into you. (male vs female). 400,000

3) Ok, but people under 20 and people over 30 you aren't interested in. A 10
(ten) year span of average age of 70. But hey we are friends here so lets do
1/5\. We are down to 80,000.

4) Ok, but how many people in that time frame are _not_ in a relationship. %10
(pulled from my facebook). Ok, that is down now to 8,000.

5) Ok, but you are into people that are physically fit. That removes %50. You
are down to 4,000.

6) Crap. You like college educated people that have a job. Now you are at
another %50 loss. 2,000.

7) Ok, but you are in a bar. What percent do not go into bars? %50 loss.
1,000.

8) But you are in a bar @ saturday at 8pm. People go out let's average 1 time
a week (thur,fri,sat). That is another %66 loss. Down to 330.

9) You are in a particular bar. There are ~600 bars in sf., with only 330
people in SF that meet your criteria. They will not be wearing a sign.

10) So, there you are, buying $8 beer #4, standing in a bar hoping to meet
someone - that statistically isn't there.

=> Online wins.

~~~
opportune
You're being overzealous narrowing the search space because you're assuming
independence between these traits. In particular, you first assume we are only
considering those between the ages of 20 and 30 in sf. But among young people
this age in sf, I assume >%50 are physically fit (if by that you mean not
fat/"normal"), >50% are college educated and have a job; also, in my
experience, the percentage of people in a relationship varies hugely between
the ages of 20 and 30 (from <20% to >75%). And of course, since SF is the
center of an urban area, many people commute into SF to both work and have fun
/ go to bars.

And here's a quick sanity check: spend a day walking around a large tech
company like FB or Google. You'll easily see over 330 people at each company
that meet all your criteria (except perhaps living in SF proper).

~~~
peter303
Correct. Ignoring dependence caused the 2008 financial meltdown. Mortgage
securities were created assuming mortgage failures were independent, when in a
financal meltdown failures are highly correlated. In math terms this is
difference of a product of numbers less than one or the minimum of numbers
less the one. The latter can be substantially higher than the former.

------
jstewartmobile
This is an interesting train that was derailed into the boring track of race.

I'd be more interested in what the long-term genetic effects of matching up
fairly similar people across larger and larger divides (distance, social
circles, habits, professions, etc.) might be.

~~~
neolefty
Is there evidence that we're gravitating towards "fairly similar people"? The
article points to evidence that online dating is increasing the diversity of
couples.

~~~
jstewartmobile
I'm speaking more in terms of traits, and working off of the assumption that
like attracts like. Skin color is just a drop in the sea of traits.

------
nunez
Online dating is a godsend.

It eliminates so much of the bullshit you deal with by meeting a stranger
through "common ties" (as the authors of this article put it) or in a social
environment like a bar or outing. You can literally find someone that you'll
highly likely be compatible with by answering a ton of questions and searching
for exactly what you want.

My fiancee and I met on OkCupid, and we are proud to tell people that we met
on there and how. I've been dating online for many years before I met her, and
I can tell that the stigma associated with it has gone down _a lot_ since
then.

I wouldn't say that online dating completely eliminates the race problem,
however. While it definitely makes it easier for people of different races to
come together by dint of not having to rely on social circles to make
connections, there are plenty of people that have their racial preferences set
in stone. I've come across plenty of women whose profiles said that they were
only interested in _x_ (where _x_ was usually someone white). I suppose that
it's really hard for someone who's grown up in a homogeneous environment to
try something else all of a sudden.

This became a lot clearer for me after we moved down to a Dallas suburb from
NYC, where damn nearly _everyone_ is white and the racial divide is really,
really clear. I'm almost always the only person of color in the events I
participate in with my fiancee (she is white) and I'm one of very, very few in
our church (she picked it out). This doesn't bother me very much, and no-one
has given me shit for looking different (except one dude who thought I was
Mexican for some reason), but I do wonder how someone in an environment like
this would go about getting romantically involved with someone non-white.

------
wallace_f
The article concludes that online dating is good for society because it
increases the rate of interracial marriage.

Isn't online dating changing more than just the rate of interracial marriage?
I suppose complex subjects can be easily simplified by looking at only one of
the effects, but it doesn't help us to understand whether it is good or bad,
it only gives an indication.

Dynamite, heroin, chemical weapons, fossil fuels, and refrigeration have all
been argued to be good for society due to some single inherent positive
effect. They all have negative effects that were unforeseen.

If we want to know what the effect would be, we would need to conduct
scientific experiments and see the results.

------
xupybd
Hmm... this article points to a lot of good outcomes but I don't see any data
to back up the claims. They also say the marriages are stronger, but don't
indicate the metrics they're using? I hope their conclusions are correct but
doubt the methods used to come to those conclusions.

------
King-Aaron
I don't think any woman I've met so far in life has damaged my self-esteem
quite to the extent that services like Tinder have.

~~~
xor1
Count yourself lucky for not having run into someone with a Cluster-B
personality disorder yet.

------
ak_yo
The figure in this article* is taken (without citation) from a 2012 article by
sociologists Michael Rosenfeld and Reuben Thomas.

(open-access preprint:
[https://web.stanford.edu/~mrosenfe/Rosenfeld_How_Couples_Mee...](https://web.stanford.edu/~mrosenfe/Rosenfeld_How_Couples_Meet_Working_Paper.pdf))

* Edit: The paper on ArXiv cites R&T properly, it's the MIT Tech Review piece that doesn't.

------
heyheyhey
Hardest reality with online dating is realizing the competition (at least for
a 30 year old like myself).

When I was in high school, I'm only competing with like 2 or 3 guys for 1
girl. In college, that increases to probably like 5-10. With online dating?
Feels like 50-100.

~~~
blacksmith_tb
That could be true in absolute terms, but my impression is that most of your
competition can't manage much more than "hey, you're cute" come-ons or worse,
so to stand out you just need not be a shallow jerk (apologies to people who
are looking for shallow jerks, I'm sure they need love too). I met my last
three partners online, over a spread over more than a decade, and that general
pattern hasn't changed, talking to them about the people they rejected.

~~~
actuallyalys
To add another anecdote to yours, as a woman dating online, the vast majority
of the messages I've received from men are "hey you're cute" or worse. The
messages I've received from women are much more likely to be better, but there
are much fewer of them.

~~~
hiram112
I don't doubt you get a lot awful messages from men. Dates have showed me
their Tinder / OKCupid apps, and not only was I surprised to see just how many
messages women actually do receive, but also how bad they were - generic or
rude or outright creepy.

But having briefly used Bumble, where the women must message the guy first, I
__never __received a message better than 'hey, hows it going?'.

Now honestly, I don't believe that's because these women couldn't figure out a
better opener. I just don't think they needed to because most men receive far
fewer messages and will reply to any match.

~~~
alikoneko
> But having briefly used Bumble, where the women must message the guy first,
> I never received a message better than 'hey, hows it going?'.

To be fair, Bumble doesn't include a lot of space for you to talk about your
interests. If I can't get an idea for who you are based on a picture (yes,
most guys only have one), what more can I say other than introduce myself? My
go-to icebreaker is "Hi! I'm Ali. I'm bad at this."

Edit: I should also note that Bumble isn't a great dating app if you also
interested in same-sex relationships. Not relevant to the parent comment, but
relevant to me.

~~~
rarec
That's rather the same issue you have on online dating sites.

Can't tell you how many girls love adventures and netflix; what exactly are
you supposed to work with here?

~~~
hiram112
Don't forget travel and trying new restaurants!

------
online-ignorer
Online dating is all about looks first and nothing else! You better look
halfway decent or your going to hate Tinder and etc. If your a minority I bet
it’s not a lot of fun either!

~~~
listic
Online dating is not just Tinder, but also questionary-heavy sites like
OkCupid. "Substance, not just selfies" is their current slogan.

~~~
jstewartmobile
The questions are just lagniappe.

Try OkCupid with the "nice boy" pic for a while, then switch to one with
visible abs, then let us know if you still believe their slogan.

edit: p.s. if you're online dating and don't have abs, get some.

~~~
megy
Yes, you end up attracting different sorts of people. What does that prove?

~~~
jstewartmobile
I look at it more as bait in a numbers game. Whether they admit it or not, sex
sells for _everyone_. More dates means more opportunities to find someone you
jive with.

I think my assumption that people are people is just as good as your
assumption that abs bring a different clientele.

------
epx
I found my wife in an online chat about 10 years ago. We would never ever meet
if the technology wasn't there. And it was quite easy to stand out - according
to her, I was the only guy that didn't say something in the line "nice shoes,
wanna fuck?".

And yes, I was looking for low-level contact with the opposite sex; but also
open to a higher-level relationship if it worked out.

------
astura
>“Our model also predicts that marriages created in a society with online
dating tend to be stronger,” they say.

From everything I understand the data says just the opposite, that couples who
met online are more likely to break up.

[https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/01/online-dating-
marr...](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/01/online-dating-
marriages_n_5909212.html)

~~~
lloyd-christmas
The article you link addresses 'couples'. This post addresses the specific
subset of 'marriage'.

~~~
astura
No, it addresses married couples too.

>8 percent of [married] online couples were separated or divorced over the
course of the survey, compared to 2 percent of the couples who met offline.

It's interesting because the paper says people who meet on-line are less
likely to get married in the first place, so it really paints a picture of how
volatile these relationships actually are.

------
modzu
ugh:

"To continue reading this article, please exit incognito mode or log in...

Visitors are allowed 3 free articles per month (without a subscription), and
private browsing prevents us from counting how many stories you've read. We
hope you understand, and consider subscribing for unlimited online access."

So like, I can just clear my browser cache to reset the counter, but you're
going to nag me about closing my browser to read this one? Come on MIT

------
StillBored
Hmmmm. The graphs are interesting, particularly the bar/restaurant line which
seems to have been fairly flat until the online line flattened out, and then
it had a big rise.

I wonder if that is because more people are actually meeting in bars, or
because people are using social media of some sort and "meeting" in a
bar/restaurant for the first time and putting that in the survey instead of
"online".

------
gumby
Surprised the article referred to the value of weak ties without explicitly
mentioning Granovetter‘s seminal paper, The Strength of Weak Ties (which
applies to much more than dating):
[http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/225469](http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/225469)

------
Dowwie
TechnologyReview is reporting plausible but non-peer reviewed research because
being first to report is more important than reporting truth. Their "Emerging
Technology from the Arxiv" needs a lightbox disclaimer warning that the
contents are unverified. A lot of people here are taking the time to read,
reflect, and comment on this material as if it were true.

------
known
Do not marry unless he/she clears fMRI
[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150127212158.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150127212158.htm)

------
Abishek_Muthian
When we launched FindDate ([https://finddate.co](https://finddate.co)) - a
chat app network dating platform, I chose to keep it interracial by default;
even though geo fencing is just a click away. Some felt it might not work.

I firmly believe that,

We cannot address racism, by hiding races. We need to give a chance to the
people to mingle with people of different races to show that they are equal.

We cannot address body shaming, by hiding people of different body sizes.

This was our base principle in FindDate and from the feedback we're receiving;
it looks like people are loving it.

~~~
slackingoff2017
Devil's advocate here, but how are skin color and body size any different from
eye color or height preference?

The only way to do it truly fairly is to disallow any physical
characteristics. By only blocking some you just change the criteria/groups who
are discriminated against. But who would use a dating site where you have no
idea what the other person looks like?

Better to use statistics to level the playing field by, for example, showing
people with less % likes more often. This is pretty much how affirmative
action works. Give people biased against by other humans more opportunity to
make up for it. Lot easier than trying to fix the bias in the humans.

If you think you can make humans ignore their sexual preferences by hiding
certain identifiers you're a lot more optimistic about humanity than I am. I
expect the most popular openers on the site to be "r u fat?" for men and "r u
at least 5' 10"?" for women. Isn't it just better if those people never talk
to each other in the first place at that point?

~~~
Abishek_Muthian
Good question. Scientifically speaking, yes the same melanin pigment which
causes skin coloration does cause the skin colouration in eye; but my context
is more on social aspect of it.

People with particular eye colour aren't oppressed as much as people of
particular skin color. By grouping users by location often denies them a
chance to see and mingle with people of other races and that's what we would
like to avoid with FindDate.

~~~
slackingoff2017
Different racial and cultural groups live in different places because people
self-select for it. If you're going to build something that breaks down racial
barriers you'll need to actively counter against existing bias IMO.

Less politically charged example with food.... If your service simply shows
all the different kinds of food available, users will generally stick with
whats familiar. If the algorithm is designed to show them mostly food they've
never tried before you can counter that bias and increase the likelihood the
user will try new foods.

~~~
Abishek_Muthian
With the context of your example,

In our case we show all kinds of food by default. The user has the choice of
choosing familiar food types. If it's available it will be shown first, if not
it again goes back to default mode. User preference still get's priority, but
given a chance to try something new; we don't see much hesitation.

------
peter303
Correction: online dating srted in the 1980s with usenet and dialup bboards.

~~~
nunez
That was more a byproduct of Usenet than an actual goal of it. It didn't
_really_ start until Yahoo! Personals in the mid-1990s.

------
gumby
The funny thing about social circles: I met my gf online a few years ago;
after we connected I realized that I knew her PhD advisor (she studied outside
California) and that a fellow student of _my_ advisor whom I knew (I also
studied outside California but in a different city from her) lived next door
to her and knew her well. And we have both lived and worked in Palo Alto for
the last 15+ years.

Yet despite those pretty tight connections our social circles are essentially
completely disjoint.

------
pjdemers
It's going to change everything about the future, because it's going to change
everyone who lives in the future. In a few generations, everyone will have
ancestors who met through online dating, and therefore would not exist without
it.

------
gerbilly
I don't get online dating.

Just meet people in real life and leave it up to chance, you know like it has
always been since the dawn of our species...

Can you imagine a shakespeare play 500 years from now where one of the major
characters is an algorithm? Geez.

------
justonepost
I am really curious about that bump in the 80's.

~~~
jamiethompson
Have you seen Halt & Catch Fire?

------
baristaGeek
According to the article Tinder has 50 million users. Is 50 a million a
significant sample considering that the world has 6 billion people?

~~~
k_sh
A sizable chunk of that 6B are people that don't live in a society that is
structured for online dating (undeveloped region, arranged marriages, etc)

------
geoffreyhale
“Our model also predicts that marriages created in a society with online
dating tend to be stronger,”

------
Danihan
So... am I missing something, or is the only evidence they cite a thin
correlation between increased online dating and increasing rates of
interracial marriage?

~~~
chubot
Yeah I was baffled by this article. It feels like it was more a simulation
than science (observation, measurement, etc.)?

 _But if the researchers add random links between people from different ethnic
groups, the level of interracial marriage changes dramatically. “Our model
predicts nearly complete racial integration upon the emergence of online
dating, even if the number of partners that individuals meet from newly formed
ties is small,” say Ortega and Hergovich._

The original paper is probably better, but this explains almost nothing to me.

~~~
jiggunjer
This is why I read the comments first. _skips article_

~~~
in_cahoots
I found this article to be a good way to hone my bullshit detector. It’s a
reputable source, I’m sure many people would read it and pass the conclusions
on to friends without thinking too deeply. Part of the appeal of HN to me is
that I can read something, form an opinion, and get immediate feedback as to
what others think. I would miss that if I read the comments first.

