What Does Love Have to Do With It?
I recently saw a New York Times article about the science of online dating called, Love, Lies and What They Learned. I am in the 9:35 class but I have heard that a group in the 8:00 class is doing their final project on this subject, which I found interesting! I decided to do some investigating of my own and ended up learning a lot of interesting facts about online dating.
Online dating is interesting because a lot of it is based on science, as is love. When we fall in love without the help of technology, we don’t really think about what makes us compatible matches, but online dating is purely about those qualities- which are bluntly related to science. There have been posts about the science of love before on this site, and it is an intriguing topic for all to read about. However, the New York Times article focused more on the trends that researchers have found on online dating sites.
Some interesting trends that the article described included how truthfull people were, what they were lying about, what each gender cared about more, trends of inter-racial matches and how politics plays into it. It turns out that everyone lies online (shocker, right?) but different genders lied about different things. For example, women lied more about their weight than men, and men lied more about their height than women. The article also stated that white members often chose other white members to date, while black members were ten times more likely to select white members. This trend brings up interesting societal topics, as it uses the quote, “‘We are nowhere near the post-racial age.'” As far as politics go, they do not go far in the online dating world as people are very hesitant to post their political views.
Overall, the article made me realize how much of our society determines the dating process. It seems to me that if there were fewer social pressures, the online dating process could be more natural and therefore effective. The science behind attraction and love continues to interest me, how do you feel about this subject? How do you feel about online dating? Do you know any interesting information about this topic?
A class blog on science and science journalism 
I think this is interesting and somewhat fits the social norms today. It would make sense that guys would lie about their height and girls would lie about their weight because in general that is what the two sexes seem to be most self-conscious about.
People use online dating a lot these days, and I think its because of two reasons. One, people are much more technologically savvy than say five years ago when online dating wasn’t as prevalent. They use the resource of the internet to their advantage in their social life. Two, users find it much more easy and accessible to meet someone online rather than to go through the whole process of meeting in real life. It’s easier because all they have to do is enter their interests and information and a third party sets them up with someone. Because of this attribute, it gives people a chance to meet a person they might not have due to inappropriate circumstances or shyness.
Funny story actually, my math professor just the other day told our 300 person class a story about how he just started online dating. He was matched up with a couple women and wasn’t very interested, but later found a women and they went on a few dates. As they continued dating he later learned to realize that she is a professor at GW too! This is a perfect example of meeting someone you might otherwise not. Had they met in public or in an academic setting such as GW, it would have probably seemed inappropriate for them to be interested in each other. Online dating, however, enabled this relationship to happen, and now my professor is taking her back to meet his parents over Thanksgiving!
I am one of the members in the group doing online dating for our group project, and I just want to say that I appreciate this article. This article is very helpful because it relates well with our thesis. We are talking about the science within online dating, and how the different sites use science as a marketing tool for their sites. I am also interested in the science behind online dating and how so many people believe it works when its been shown that it has a very low success rate. I feel that online dating really isnt that successful because of the fact that it isnt personal. You are meeting a brand new person through a computer. When you meet someone in person, you get to talk to them and see if you would want to even pursue anything personal with them. Online dating only allows you meet someone through their profile. But hey, people thinks it works, and it does work for some so good for them, but I think its better if you do it person to person
I’m glad you found this article helpful! It definitely is interesting, but I have to agree with gwbaseball that it isn’t the most successful way to find a partner. I know from experiene how important it is to have that “gut feeling” when you first meet someone in person. I know that you can’t form a lifetime based on this feeling, but I personally think it’s important to have. I guess I don’t particularly like online dating because it takes the glamor away from romance.
However, I think in a certain point in people’s lives, they don’t care about the glamor anymore. I think that online dating is best for these people who have probably lost patience- particularly older people or people looking for their second or third partner. Either way, it’s an interesting topic to learn about.