Not individually, but on behalf of everyone at the bar, I felt a tremendous sense of rejection. Instead of mingling with the people around her, she went online to look for a partner.
I began to wonder if this was what online dating had done to us. Is it ushering in a new era in which individuals consciously shun face-to-face contact?
Others, of course, have been concerned about similar issues in the past. However, the concern that internet dating is altering us as a society, that it is instilling unhealthy habits and preferences that aren’t in our best interests, is fueled more by paranoia than by reality.
Michael Rosenfeld, a sociologist at Stanford who has been conducting a long-running study of online dating, told me the other day, “There are a lot of hypotheses out there about how internet dating is terrible for us.” “And, for the most part, they’re unjustified.”
Rosenfeld has acquired a lot of information regarding the expanding role of dating apps like Tinder by keeping track of the dating lives of over 3,000 people. They’re still significant today: one out of every four heterosexual couples now meets online. (It’s closer to two out of every three for gay couples.) The apps have been a huge hit, and in ways that many people didn’t expect.
In reality, online dating has shown to be more valuable — both to individuals and to society — than the traditional channels it has replaced on multiple levels.
I chatted with Rosenfeld to learn more about his research, to learn how the rise of online dating is defining modern love, and to discuss the most common myths about online dating. For length and clarity, the interview has been modified.
You have one of the most unique data sets about modern romance. What have you learned about how people date today?
One of the first things you should know about dating — or, more accurately, courtship customs, since not everyone refers to it as dating — is that the average age of marriage in the United States has risen considerably over time. People used to marry in their early twenties, which meant that most dating and courtship took place with the purpose of being married right away. And it is no longer the way young people live. The average age of first marriage has risen to late twenties, and more people in their 30s and even 40s are opting out of marriage.
People can now meet more possible companions than they might at work or in their area thanks to the rise of phone apps and online dating services. It makes it easy for someone looking for a specific type of mate to find what they’re looking for. It also benefits app users by allowing them to maintain a regular routine of encounters that do not have to lead to relationships. These are absolutely characteristics of modern romanticism, in my opinion.
Part of what you have uncovered during your research is how drastic the rise of online dating has been. That’s something not everyone thinks this is a good thing. Why are many people skeptical?