Researchers Skeptical of Claims From Dating Sites

Researchers at the University of Arkansas took a look at several claims of the more popular online dating sites. Psychology professor Jeffrey Lohr and Aimee King and Deena Austin-Oden (psychology graduates) found that the claims are more self serving than anything else. They wrote an article about this topic called Browsing for Love in All the Wrong Places which can be found in Skeptic magazine, volume 15 number 1. We found a review of this article at PhysOrg.

One example that the researchers used, as pointed out by PhysOrg, which made them skeptical of claims by dating sites is customer satisfaction testimonies. It is assumed by the researches that most dating sites only select satisfied customers reviews to display, rather than an average sample from all testimonies received. This is an obvious point and I am sure most people realize testimonials and reviews on a dating services own website are all preselected. In fact most companies in any industry would operate this way. It is how marketing works.

eHarmony, Perfectmatch.com, Chemistry and Match.com are all talked about in the review of the article at PhysOrg. The one example given about Match.com is their claim that they are responsible for twice as many marriages as any other site in the world. According to the review, Match.com:

... measures success according to the number of marriages. However, Match.com does not use divorce to measure failure and thus cannot offer scientific research to support the usefulness of their claim.

There are a few problems I have with this statement. The major one being is yes, Match.com does match singles together. The thing is they use the members criteria for matchmaking. Match.com does not have some secret matchmaking algorithm they use to measure personality traits, etc.. to ensure that the two people who connected will have a long and healthy relationship. Match.com offers a pool of eligible singles and the tools needed to find your ideal match. They help bring people together which can lead to marriage but , as far as how long the relationship will last and what type of people their members want to meet, Match.com leaves that up to its users. Now if the review was talking about Match.com's sister site, Chemistry or the eHarmony and measuring divorce rates, I would have the opposite position. This is because these dating sites, are matchmaking sites. The service they offer is to find a successful match for their members which will lead to a long term relationship. Not only marriages but divorces would be important in these statistics, since obviously a divorce is a failed relationship.

For the full review of the article read PhysOrg.com. You can also visit the Skeptic Magazine website to order a copy of the magazine with the article (there is no online version).