Contributed by: ElyseRomano on Saturday, March 10 2012 @ 08:51 am
Last modified on
Once upon a time, matches were made through friends and family, through classes and workshops, through the workplace and religious institutions. Now, thanks to the meteoric rise of online dating, a virtual "flirt" or a message sent via email are equally likely to bring couples together.
Most people, from relationship experts to the daters themselves, are raving about online dating, but a new review written by a team of psychologists suggests that dating websites may actually be lowering singles' chances of building a successful relationships by distorting their attitudes and expectations.
"Specific things the online dating industry does [do] undermine some of its greatness," the lead author of the new review, Eli J. Finkel, Ph.D., said to CNN[*1] . He believes that the major potential pitfall of online dating is the very thing that online dating websites are constructed around: profiles. Although profiles seem to be a detailed look at who a person is and what they're looking for, Finkel's team of researchers say that the information found in profiles is rarely useful in determining compatibility. Studies have shown that most singles don't actually know what they want in a partner, meaning that what they look for in a date online often isn't what creates a real, lasting connection.
The "shopping" mentality that online dating sites create may also be reducing the chance of finding love online. Singles may become too picky and judgmental, passing on partners that could be perfect for them because someone new is just a click away. Instead of evaluating potential dates spontaneously, online daters are often overly-critical and sabotage potential matches by developing unreasonable expectations based on profiles and messages.
And then there's the algorithms, which claim to take the guesswork out of mating by using psychology and mathematical formulas to pair up potential dates. The review team found no studies that proved the effectiveness of algorithms, and other research has found that it's "extremely difficult to predict the likelihood that a relationship will succeed before two people meet." Instead of bringing couples together, algorithms may be creating a "destiny mindset" that places the focus on initial compatibility rather than on factors that really make up the foundation for a long-term relationship.
Finkel advises finding a happy middle ground: use online dating sites to identify potential matches but move the budding relationship offline as quickly as possible, and don't assume that more time spent browsing profiles translates to a greater likelihood of finding The One. "There's probably never going to be a substitute for getting two minutes from another person across a cup of coffee," he says.