Love in the digital age
Since the turn of the century, online dating has transformed how people meet each other and fall in love
When was online dating invented?
Matchmaking services of one kind or another have been around for a long time. Britain’s first known lonely hearts ad appeared in 1695, from a man in search of “a good young gentlewoman”. Marriage agencies, run by clergymen, appeared in the 18th century. By the early 1900s, matrimonials – newspapers devoted entirely to those looking for a spouse – were common. Computerised services, offering to pair likely couples, entered the game in the 1960s. Online dating began when Match.com went live in 1995: for the first time, people could browse profiles of hundreds of potential mates in the comfort of their own homes. By 2001, the website had two million users, and it remains the world’s most widely used dating site.
How popular is online dating today?
Very. The exact figures are hard to quantify, but since the turn of the century, online dating has emerged as one of the main ways that people meet their partners (the others are via school or university, work, friends and family). Surveys suggest that at least 20% of British adults have dated online – some six million every month. In the US, a University of Chicago study found that 35% of people marrying between 2005 and 2012 had met online (though that includes those meeting on social media or online forums). Online dating has grown fast since then, thanks to mobile apps aimed at younger people. Tinder, the biggest of these, launched in 2012; by 2015 it had matched more than eight billion potential couples. Social groups that face what one study called “a thin market for potential partners”, such as gay people and middle-aged heterosexuals, are especially likely to meet partners online. By 2010, 70% of US gay couples were meeting online.
How do online dating services work?
Websites such as Match.com, Okcupid and eharmony use detailed questionnaires covering everything from income to political views to hair colour and exercise habits. Using profiling algorithms (Match takes into account 1,500 variables), they offer you suitable matches. Apps, though, are simpler: they are largely descended from Grindr, the app designed to link gay men with others in the area. On most apps, you set location (i.e. “up to ten miles from me”), age and gender. You’re then presented with a series of profiles, showing photos and usually some career and education information. You swipe right if you like the look of someone, and left if you don’t. If you both swipe right, you match, and can message each other. Endless variations on these two basic models are available (many owned by the huge Match group). Bumble only lets women make the first move; Toffee is for the privately educated; Bristlr is for those who have beards or love them; Ashley Madison is for those seeking extramarital sex.
Is the technology effective?
Social scientists have repeatedly found that there is no compelling evidence to support dating sites’ claims about the precision of their matching algorithms: the business of long-term compatibility remains mysterious. On the other hand, algorithms have proved good at ranking their customers’ attractiveness, and pairing them up accordingly. When you first join Tinder, for instance, your profile is shown widely and prominently. The response you get is then used to give an Elo score: a desirability rating based on a scoring system first used to rank chess players. This then determines the profiles that Tinder will offer you.
So you’re objectively assessed?
Yes. Dating services have to smooth out supply and demand. In the younger age groups, there’s a surplus of men; in the older age groups, there’s a surplus of women (since older single men often seek younger women). The technology has to ensure that certain people – usually attractive women – don’t get all the attention. “In a bar, it’s self-correcting,” says Christian Rudder, a founder of Okcupid. “You see ten guys standing around one woman, maybe you don’t walk over and try to introduce yourself. Online, people have no idea how ‘surrounded’ a person is.” Even on sites where people express detailed preferences, these are often ignored if their behaviour gives a more reliable guide to what they really want. For instance, people may say they have no racial preference for their partners, while clearly choosing one ethnic group over others.
How is online dating changing society?
Romantic partners used to come overwhelmingly from within our existing social networks. But the internet forms links between people whose paths would otherwise never have crossed, creating a society that is rapidly integrating. While causation is impossible to prove, the rate of interracial marriages, for instance, has increased sharply this century. And now that the stigma around online dating has greatly reduced, it will presumably continue to grow – eharmony thinks that over 50% of couples will meet online by 2031. The long-term effects are likely to be seismic.
Has it changed relationships?
The University of Chicago’s study suggested that relationships begun online were 25% more likely to last; however, other researchers have reached the opposite conclusion. Academics generally agree, though, on one point: the huge pool of prospective partners on the internet poses a real problem for commitment. The Association for Psychological Science argues that reviewing multiple candidates makes us more inclined to dismiss not-quite-perfect candidates in a way that we wouldn’t if we met them, say, spontaneously at a party; and that it is harder to work through difficult moments in a marriage when the promise of endless new partners is just a click away. Indeed, it would suit the industry – which generates annual revenue of about $2bn in the US alone – if people were to carry on using its products, rather than doing so just the once.