Does online dating really work?
Given that I work for an online dating site, I get this question a lot. In fact, many seriously question if computers can match people and help them find love. To be fair, computers are only good at calculating logical operations, and love is anything but logical. To explain the process of online matching, I have to make a correction; online dating sites are a means for “online meeting” and in fact very few people actually “date” online. These site inherently cannot determine one’s love of life (especially considering that there is absolutely no philosophical consensus on the definition of love), but they can help their users find their match (and perhaps love) by growing their network to millions of users.
So, do I believe online dating sites really work?
Yes, and aside from our internal data and the occasional wedding invitations we receive, numbers also prove it: according to JupiterResearch, US online dating market is expected to grow to $932 Million by 2011 and during the same period the European market is expected to double.
May 8th, 2007 at 12:33 am
I agree mostly. I think, as you said, one is using “online dating” to mean “online matching”.
I think this does work and there are two elements to it: 1) if the matching is done “intelligently” (and there is a lot to be said for that), then it weeds out a lot of non-starters. Or at least one hopes. This “quality” can also be used to sharpen and hone the intelligence of the match. 2) by the sheer fact that the person using the system knows (or thinks) that there is match, an aura is created to convince the searching person that the match is better for him/her than a random match. This second one uses a lot of magic of psychological “projection” which usually works a lot and for a while!
October 22nd, 2007 at 6:32 am
I hate those men who would send into war youth to fight and die for them; the pride and cowardice of those old men, making their wars that boys must die — Mary Roberts Rinehart