Online dating has changed the world.
As online dating heats up, commitment gets the kiss-off.
In his new book, “Love in the Time of Algorithms: What Technology Does to Meeting and Mating,” writer Dan Slater argues that online dating has changed society profoundly. Slater, 35, a Brooklyn, N.Y., newlywed, explains how and why.
Q: What is it about online dating today that you believe has made such a big difference?
A: It’s the vast expansion of the dating pool. Everyone has access to so many more people than they were accustomed to in the past. I started to wonder how that might affect how people approach their relationship lives. Many of my friends are married to people they met online. Many have been using online dating a long, long time and have yet to settle down. The main thing was the ubiquity of it and how it suddenly expanded the mating pool.
Q: You suggest that online dating has made relationships more disposable. Why?
A: An element of commitment is based on the availability of alternatives. Online dating made a lot more people feel they are part of a larger mating pool than they were used to. What I found when I interviewed a lot of daters (more than 100, plus 50 industry executives) is that people tended to be moving from one relationship to the next a lot faster than they seemed to before online dating existed. That was based on my interviews with online daters and the opinions of about 90 percent of the industry executives I interviewed. It was a combination of the anecdotal and statistical.
Q: How much science is really involved in matching people the way some online sites do?
A: Science can examine a couple already together and throw them in a room and watch them interact and, based on observation of their interactions, can predict the likelihood of divorce or staying together. What has not been proven is the predictive power of two strangers. However, what online dating does seem to be improving at is the likelihood of two strangers getting along well on a first date. As far as the algorithms go, and the ability of algorithms to predict compatibility between two people, what my reporting and research showed was that psychological science has not provided the ability to predict long-term compatibility between a couple who have never met.
