Studies

By now you've probably read – or at least heard about – Vanity Fair's recent takedown of online dating. The lengthy article is essentially an obituary for traditional courtship, which writer Nancy Jo Sales says is long gone thanks to online dating sites and mobile apps.

Tinder responded with a very public Twitter meltdown and tongues have been wagging about the state of modern dating ever since. Some agree with Sales, while others believe it's simply moral panic and anyone who hasn't jumped on the Tinder train is probably just too old to understand it.

The good news is, a growing body of scientific research is dedicated to online dating and the social change that comes along with it. The bad news is, even the scientists can't seem to agree with each other.

A 2012 study called “Searching for a Mate: The Rise of the Internet as a Social Intermediary” found no difference in relationship quality or strength between couples who met online and couples who met off. It also suggested that marriage and partnership rates may increase, as people with smaller pools of potential mates use dating services to cast wider nets.

Another 2012 study, headed up by Eli Finkel, concluded that most matching algorithms don't work. However, it also noted that “Online dating offers access to potential partners whom people would be unlikely to meet through other avenues, and this access yields new romantic possibilities.”

A 2013 study on marital satisfaction and breakups deemed online dating an unequivocally good thing. The research was sponsored by eHarmony, which rightfully has given some readers pause, but was reviewed by independent statisticians prior to publication.

A second study from 2013 examined sexual behavior and the “hookup culture” supposedly propagated by apps like Tinder. After examining a nationally representative sample of more than 1,800 18- to 25-year-olds, the study concluded that today's youth aren't substantially more promiscuous than previous generations. In fact, they may actually be having less sex than their predecessors.

Things got weird in 2014. Using the same data from 2012's “Searching for a Mate” study, a Ph.D. candidate at Michigan State came to the opposite conclusion about online dating and relationship quality. According to her findings, online daters are more likely to date than marry, more likely to break up faster, and more likely to break up more often.

How could two studies using the same statistics arrive at such different conclusions?

The answer is something we've always known: love is messy, contradictory, and confusing. Try quantifying that and you're bound to be disappointed.

Younger daters are really into dating apps – they helped bring Tinder into the mainstream, and now there are a slew of new dating apps hitting the market, allowing you to do everything from set your Instagram feed to music (Raya) and obtain the dating profile of that girl at the coffee shop you just couldn’t bring yourself to talk to (Happn). While younger daters are active on these apps, as it turns out, the fastest-growing group of online daters is 60 and older.

But do younger and older online daters date differently? University of Texas researchers Eden Davis and Karen Fingerman suspected that their were contrasts between their motivations for online dating, but wanted to determine this through the content of their profiles, so they conducted a study published this month about the differences in profile language and motivation each age group has when it comes to dating.

While we know people using dating websites and apps are typically motivated to find a partner and to date, we know little about the differences of what motivates them to use dating sites, what exactly they are looking for, or how they present themselves to different partners. Gathering 4000 online dating profiles from men and women across the United States, the researchers sampled profiles evenly by gender and from four age groups (18 to 29; 30 to 49; 50 to 64; and 65 or over). The final sample ranged in age from 18 to 95.

First, the researchers studied the most common words used in profiles by all age groups, which included: like, love, music, good, enjoy and fun. But they also discovered different age groups used different words in common when crafting their online dating profiles. For younger daters, these most frequently included the words: go, get, work, school, laugh, movies, much, find, think, try and anything.

Older daters seemed to be more focused on building connection. Their profiles most frequently included words like: man, woman, share, relationship, humor, travel, years, honest, important, well, sense, and family.

Eden said in her report: “Notably, older adults used more positive emotion words such as “sweet,” “kind,” and “nice,” more first person plural pronouns such as “we,” “us,” and “our,” and more words in the ‘friends’ category. These findings suggest that when they present themselves to potential partners, older adults focus on positivity and connectedness to others. Not surprisingly, older adults were also more likely to use health-related words such as “ache,” “doctor,” and “exercise.”

Younger adults tended to enhance their profiles, using mostly first-person singular pronouns like “I” and “me.” They also tended to focus on work and achievement.

The researchers concluded that adults of all ages were looking for love and a partner to enjoy life with, but that younger adults focus more on themselves and their own attributes, while older daters focused on positivity and connection to others.

Like your friend's Facebook relationship, the relationship between race and online dating is complicated.

Past studies have found that people tend to communicate with singles who share their ethnic background. According to Dataclysm, the book released by OkCupid co-founder Christian Rudder last year, race plays a major role in online dating. Whites are most preferred, while blacks are least preferred. Hispanics and Asians fall somewhere between the two poles.

That's regardless of gender. Throw gender into the mix and the stats are even more likely to make you squirm. Black women, Asian men, black men, and Latino men are the least desirable segments in the dating market. At the other end of the spectrum, Asian and Latina women are seen as most desirable (which Rudder attributes to fetishization).

What Rudder's research doesn't cover is a rapidly expanding portion of the American population: individuals who identify as multiracial.

A new study from the Council on Contemporary Families explores the subject. The aim was to examine how often Asian-white, black-white, and Hispanic-white singles received responses to messages, compared to singles of one race. In total, 6.7 million messages collected between 2003 and 2010 were reviewed.

At first glance, the study seems to reveal an advantage to being a multiracial online dater. “The most surprising finding from our study is that some white-minority multiracial daters are, in fact, preferred over white daters,” the authors write in a press release. Three combinations were particularly favored: Hispanic-white men, Asian-white men, and Asian-white women.

The study offers several theories. One suggests that the media presents multiraciality as exotic and attractive, at the same time as enforcing negative stereotypes about other races. Another posits that multiracial partners may be more appealing because they straddle the line between an American upbringing and important cultural traditions.

Beneath the potentially progressive surface, the story of multiracial dating is more complicated.

“White men and women are still less likely to respond to an individual who identifies as part black and part white than they are to a fellow white,” the press release states. And looking at the three most popular multiracial groups, a partiality for whiteness appears to be clear even when ethnicities are blended.

Looking forward, the study's findings could prove either positive or negative for online daters. On one hand, mono-racial individuals who are already at a disadvantage online may fall even father behind. On the other hand, racial lines could continue to blur until they've all but disappeared.

Here's hoping for the Benetton ad option.

For a dating site that is all about multiracial dating, you can read our InterracialMatch Review.

You've heard that you need to put your best foot forward online. So, thinking you were doing exactly what you're supposed to do, you agonized over your username, your self-description, your photos. Every detail of your profile was carefully reviewed and redone until you felt confident you'd achieved perfection.

What if all of that was unnecessary? According to research from the University of Iowa, appearing too perfect online can actually work against you.

The study found that daters are distrusting of profiles that are too flashy or flawless. Instead, the most successful profiles are those that offer an authentic look at who a person really is.

"We found people want to contact a person who appears to be accurate in what they are saying about themselves online," said one of the study's authors, University of Iowa communications professor Andy High, in a statement. "It's tough when it comes to dating profiles because we want someone who seems like an amazing person, but we also hopefully will have a relationship with this individual, so we want them to exist."

To test how daters respond to different types of dating profiles, the researchers created 8 fake OkCupid profiles (4 men and 4 women) with combinations of two possible orientations. The first was “Selective Self-Preservation.” Profiles with this orientation highlighted the good aspects of the person's life while downplaying the negatives. The other kind of profile, “Warranting,” contained information that could easily be traced to a real person.

150 men and 167 women were asked to review the profiles and decide which ones they would contact. The majority chose profiles of the second type – those that did not present the person as perfect, and contained info that made the person feel more real.

In other words, people were turned off by profiles that appeared too good to be true. When stories of online love gone wrong come out on a daily basis, it's hard to blame them for being wary.

“Users of online dating sites are aware that people misrepresent themselves, and inaccurate profiles are one of the biggest drawbacks to using online dating sites,” the study says.

It's a difficult position to be in. Paint an unattractive picture of yourself and your profile won't get very far. Paint a picture that's too attractive and you're in the same boat. So what's an online dater to do?

“You want to balance all that is wonderful about yourself with some things that aren’t negative, but more humble or realistic about yourself,” says High. “It’s important to put your best foot forward, but maybe not in your best pair of shoes.”

People say “there are plenty of fish in the sea,” but sometimes the online dating sea feels more like a swamp. You encounter creature after creature, stumble through quicksand, and occasionally find a rare flower amongst the moss and mold.

When you do find one of the eligible ones, the pressure's on. What's the best way to break the ice so they don't run away, thinking you're one of the swamp creatures? A study published in Evidence Based Medicine may have the answer.

Scientists from Barts, the London School of Medicine, and The University of North Texas teamed up to uncover the secrets of the perfect online dating profile. They performed a meta-analysis of 86 psychology, sociology, computer, and behavioral studies, and compiled surprisingly specific guidelines for expert online dating.

Conversations beginning with open-ended questions consistently had the highest response rates. Open-ended questions allow the recipient to choose from many possible answers, thereby keeping the conversation flowing. A simple yes or no question, on the other hand, stalls the conversation as soon as it's answered.

Initial exchanges also fared better when response times were quick. That may come as a surprise to those who are worried about appearing over-eager. Speedy replies were not a turn off, so no need to keep a date waiting.

In news that isn't surprising, messages that included spontaneous wit and humor were well received, as were messages that disclosed personal information. The former puts the recipient in a good mood, exerting a powerful influence on the way they imagine they will feel with you in the future. The latter makes them feel closer to you.

Generic messages are not advised, nor is overt flattery. Potential dates want to feel special, so avoid the cut and paste, but we are also not inclined to accept compliments we don't think are credible. Strike a balance somewhere in between.

End every conversation on a positive note. We're hardwired to remember the end of an experience better than the beginning or the middle, so we judge the pleasure of an experience based primarily on its conclusion. That's the best time to reveal positive things about yourself.

Do not wait too long to turn an online chat into a face-to-face meeting. An earlier switch is associated with better outcomes.

First impressions really do count. Keep the first conversation fun and honest, because that's how your match will think of you during future exchanges, and get offline as soon as you feel comfortable.

Did you know crafty ladies love Houston, men in Seattle seek outdoor adventure, and intellectual singles flock to Washington, DC?

It's hard to put much stock in the interests section on online dating profiles. Occasionally you may connect with something, but mostly it's a lot of boring clichés (“I like traveling and hanging out with my friends”). All most of us use the interests section for is scanning for red flags and looking for microscopic signs of compatibility.

Well, it turns out those interests may serve a more important purpose. Using an interest-based algorithm, PlentyOfFish examined the dating profiles of more than 10 million singles over the age of 21 to group them into personality types. The results were released as a new research study called PlentyOfPersonality.

The research identified the top 20 personality archetypes, based on corresponding interests, of singles in 11 major American cities. The data was then broken down by city and gender to asses how differences and similarities in the personality types might impact dating habits.

The 20 personality types are: Artist, Bar Game Buff, Cultured Urbanite, Curious George, Eternal Optimist, Family First, Fast and Furious, Happy-Go-Lucky, Health Buff, Intellectual, Live Event Fan, Mainly Mainstream, Pinteresters, Romantic, Salt of the Earth, Social Butterfly, Sports Fanatic, Weekend Warrior, Well-Rounded, and Outdoor Adventurer.

Scanning the data, it's clear that some cities have greater potential for compatibility than others. Men and women in Detroit, for example, sync up on three of the four top personality types: Weekend Warriors, Eternal Optimists, and Bar Game Buffs.

On the other hand, singles in Boston may have a hard time finding their matches. Female residents are Cultured Urbanites, but most men are partying Weekend Warriors. A similar split is seen in Seattle, where men are Weekend Warriors and Outdoor Adventurers, but women fit into the quieter and more creative categories of Pinteresters and Artists.

So what we can we learn from POF's personality study?

First, don't skip over the interests section. You may be tempted to say “I dunno,” “Ask me,” “Too many to list here,” or leave it blank, but you're missing a valuable opportunity.

When you do fill it out, consider your answers carefully. Discerning visitors are using your interests, consciously or subconsciously, to construct a portrait of your personality. Make sure it's an accurate representation of who you are and make sure the statement it's making is positive.

If all else fails, perhaps it's time to pack up and move. Love could be waiting across state lines. For more on the dating service which conducted the study, you can read our Plenty of Fish review.