Monday, February 15, 2010

A Fifth of Singles Have Tried Internet Dating

A new study from Duke sociologists Rebecca Tippett, S. Philip Morgan, and Jessica Sauter have found that 18% of single people with access to the internet have tried online dating. The people who use online dating are most likely to be educated white people in cities or their suburbs.

In my survey of Centre College alumni I find that 5.8% of the married alumni met their spouses online. I did not ask how many of the still-single had also tried online data, but I expect the Centre results match those in the Duke study.

3 comments:

Adriana said...

Probably accurate. My spouse and I met online, and we have at least 2 couple friends who met online as well.

randy said...

i think what's happened is that all stigma once associated w/responding to or-especially-placing a personal ad is now completely gone.

whereas as recently as a decade or so ago, there may have still been a taint to the whole business; it was perhaps seen as the recourse of losers, horndogs, sleazos, psychos and just plain sad, lonely, homely folks...now it's just, well, HOW IT'S DONE.

just as one goes online for evrything else, so also for a gf/bf. why not, if it works?

and in fact it may be the only halfway realistic possibility if one is, say, very busy or in a situation where prospective partners are not much in evidence.

Gruntled said...

I think most people find their spouses with the help of some kind of matchmaker - even if only a circle of friends. Online dating is so much more sophisticated than the old personal ads. I can see the sense of this new development.