Back in the neolithic era of the 1990s, if you wanted to find a suitable partner to share your cave with, you would first need to take a break from your hunting and gathering and lug your ass all the way out to the nearest rock bar to meet someone. Either that, or wait for your Flintstonian friends to set you up on a blind date. Those were the days when it was a real challenge to find someone you felt comfortable enough around to get down on all fours with, let alone get hitched to.
In 2013, however, our technology has evolved to the point where not only is it easier to meet a new partner in life, the marriages that are resulting from online dating are proving to last longer and be more fulfilling. The research was conducted by social neuroscientist John Cacioppo at the University of Chicago, and the results were published in a recent edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Ingrid Wickelgren is an editor at Scientific American Mind, and she writes:
“From an online survey of 19,131 American adults who married between 2005 and 2012, the researchers revealed, for the first time, that a large proportion of marriages are emerging from online interactions. ‘I was astounded to see that over a third or marriages are now starting online. None of us knew that,’ Cacioppo says. Cacioppo’s team also found that meeting your spouse online was associated with a lower rate of marital breakups than were offline venues. And couples who met online also reported a higher rate of marital satisfaction than those who met without a computer intermediary … ‘The fact that it is significant at all and that online is superior to offline to me is surprising,’ Cacioppo points out. ‘That breakup and marital satisfaction follow same pattern suggests that something about meeting online that is associated with better outcomes.'”
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