Too many cooks spoil the broth, but do too many dates spoil the romance?

People love online dating because it offers so many choices, including potential partners you may never have met otherwise. Falling in love with someone who lives halfway across the world was almost impossible before the Internet.

But all those choices could be making dating harder. Instead of making your life easier, online dating might be making it more stressful thanks to a psychological phenomenon called the “paradox of choice.” The more choices you have, the more difficult it is to actually make one. Instead we consistently feel unsatisfied with our choices, or simply refuse to choose at all.

Increased choice has been scientifically proven to cause anxiety and “choice overload,” which is exactly what you think it is. Your brain can become overwhelmed when faced with too many online dating profiles, causing it to misremember what it sees in each. It can also cause you to make decisions that are less than optimal, and settle for partners who don't match your own stated preferences.

And let's not forget about the time factor. Online dating is a notorious time-suck, and it gets worse the more options you have. A 2009 study found that "more search options triggered excessive searching," making it harder for participants to weed out incompatible options and hone in on what they really wanted.

The famous experiment that tested the paradox of choice was conducted by Columbia University professors in 2000. Grocery store shoppers were presented with 6 jam samples on one table and 24 on another. More customers visited the table with 24 choices, but fewer actually purchased from it. That means that while we are initially attracted to having many options, we find it more difficult to choose when actually presented with them.

Online dating is a table full of thousands and thousands of jams. The variety is endless and the supply is bottomless. It's hard to decide what's going on your toast under those circumstances, and the end result is apathy.

But there's hope. Other research has found that, under the right circumstances, more options can actually make you more certain of your choice by heightening the distinctions between possibilities. Online dating allows you to get hyper-specific about what you want, meaning you can narrow down your options to maximize effectiveness.

In the end, the real benefit of online dating sites is a little bit of both. By getting hyper-specific, they put the most relevant, compatible people directly in front of you. And by offering so many choices, they also leave open the possibility of meeting someone you didn't even know you were looking for.

Zoosk may be a leading online dating company, but recent times have proved it isn't smooth sailing even if you're a hit.

Sources told TechCrunch Zoosk laid off 15% of its employees in January 2015, a figure the company has since confirmed. The change was made as part of a larger effort to cut costs in many areas.

This latest news comes after a string of ill omens for Zoosk. The company's founders left their leadership positions at the end of 2014, hinting at trouble that may be happening behind the scenes. Shayan Zadeh and Alex Mehr pulled back from their daily involvement with the company, choosing to become members of the board instead. CFO Kelly Steckelberg stepped up as CEO in the wake of their departures.

The latest dating app launch is capturing a lot of buzz - and aimed at marketing to the so-called “dating elite.” If you’re single and successful, The League might be the app for you.

The League has gotten attention because of its latest round of funding. Though founder Amanda Bradford was at first looking to raise half a million according to Time Magazine, she has now received $2.1 million from investors looking for the next Tinder – but without, you know – all the low-brow hook-ups.

The League differentiates itself from its competition by offering exclusivity – you have to be accepted into its network. The acceptance algorithm it uses according to Business Insider “scans the social networks to ensure applicants are in the right age group and that they are career-oriented.” The article goes on to say: “That doesn’t mean they have to be Ivy graduates or work for a big-name firm. But they should have accomplished something in their 20s.”

If you are accepted, you are given a limited number of matches each day at 5:00pm, which The League calls “Happy Hour.” You are also given the ability to refer one friend.

The League isn’t the first app to offer more “quality” matches as opposed to the giant dating pool that is Tinder. Hinge is invitation-only, working from your social media circles and offering a limited number of matches per day, as does Coffee Meets Bagel. The difference is that The League utilizes LinkedIn to find matches, avoiding direct contacts (like your boss) and working with those a little further removed. Some have argued that this blurs the line between business and personal, although eHarmony announced earlier this year they would be offering job-matching services to employers and potential employees.

So far, The League has attracted around 4,500 users from San Francisco. Like Hinge, CEO Branford wants to move slowly, city by city, to build her network in a more thoughtful way. She discovered most couples meet through school or work connections, and she wanted to optimize these already-existing networks (hence using LinkedIn for matching). In fact, she is doing much of the business networking herself by attending parties of tech execs in Silicon Valley and fundraisers in San Francisco. She walks around demonstrating her app and offering bracelets with the app’s logo to attendees.

“It isn’t an app for everybody,” Branford told the New York Times. “We’re trying to hit home that…people do have high standards.”

Recipient
OurTime.com

The Editor's choice for the Top Pick - Senior Award of 2014 is Our Time. This dating site for 50 plus singles is the largest dating site that is dedicated to matching seniors together.

OurTime.com has many features which makes online dating easier. The member’s home page is well laid out and it makes navigating the site simple. One neat and useful feature that OurTime has implement involves communication. When you create your profile you have the option of adding Message Starter Ideas. These make first contact messages much easier as it gives the person sending the message and idea of what you want to know about your matches. The type of questions you can select from include asking about their family to what your main goals in life are.

It doesn’t take long to create a starter profile on OurTime which allows you to log in and see what this dating site is all about. You just need to go through a six step process and in about a few minutes you will be done. From there, you can search and view other profiles for free. If you find someone you like and want to communicate with you can add the rest of the details to your profile (including pictures, your interests, and your physical attributes). After paying a small monthly fee you will then be able to send and receive messages and chat with other members who are online the same time you are.

Read our review of OurTime.com for more information about this dating service or visit OurTime directly.

This Year's Runner Up for this award is: SeniorPeopleMeet.com

Online dating is evolving along with daters’ preferences. We have grown used to the idea of using technology for our personal lives, with more people online dating than ever (thanks to the rise of dating apps like Tinder).

The dating landscape has changed, even in the last few years. There is new technology of course, but there is also the growing number of singles (which consist of more than half of U.S. adults over age 18), and the fact that young adults are waiting longer to marry. So college isn’t the place you’re likely to meet your life partner – instead, it’s more likely going to be online.

With so much changing and so many singles out there, why is it still so hard to find the right person, or even to get a date from a few back-and-forth texts?

The answer might be simpler than you think. There have been several studies in recent years about our ability to make decisions, especially when we are given a lot of choices. Much like wandering into a candy store when you just want a bite of something sweet, your mind can be immediately overloaded with all the different types, brands, and flavors – so that you almost become paralyzed by the choices and unable to make a decision.

A study was conducted a few years back, where a group of people were given a choice between a few different brands of laundry detergents and asked to pick which one they’d buy. With only three or four choices, they tended to read the labels of ingredients and decide which was best based on content. They were also generally pleased with their choices.

The next group was given dozens of choices of laundry detergent. Researchers discovered when there were more than a few choices, people didn’t take any longer in making a decision - they were too overwhelmed and didn’t read the labels at all. The majority chose which detergent they would buy based solely on what the container looked like, and didn’t look at the ingredients. In fact – they were basing their decisions purely on superficial “looks,” because it was easier than trying to get to know all of their choices.

It’s no wonder we feel a bit ADD when it comes to dating, and that apps like Tinder have taken off. When we are given too much choice, it’s easier to just look at the photo and make an impulsive decision – yes or no - rather than think about what we really want. We don’t get to know people before deciding we aren’t interested in a date or even a drink. It’s too easy to think “there’s probably someone even better” while we are swiping, so we don't think twice about standing someone up or refusing to text them back.

Maybe it’s time to focus on one date at a time. Maybe we should start saying yes more often - instead of no.

Recipient
Tinder

The 2014 Editor's Choice Top Pick - Innovative Award goes to the fastest growing dating app, Tinder. Reaching an estimated valuation of just over 1 billion dollars in 3 short years Tinder has become the dating app to imitate by other companies (is there any bigger form of flattery?).

As of September 2014 Tinder members generate over 1 billion swipes and 12 million matches (both swipe yes for each other’s profile) every day. In eight months this dating app has grown in leaps and bounds. Last December Tinder was only receiving 3 million swipes every day.

To become a member of Tinder the only thing required is a Facebook account. Tinder uses the information found on Facebook for your profile information (includes your age, interests, etc…). You can also specify which photos from Facebook you want to display on Tinder. Once your Tinder account is setup you can then start swiping and hopefully make a few matches. Once both you and someone else has expressed mutual interest in each other can you then go ahead and communicate via chatting or sending messages.

Tinder wasn’t the first dating app on the market it but it has by far been the most successful. The combination of how simple it is to use to create a membership and search for matches has made it a winner for many 20 and 30 something singles.

Read our review of Tinder for more information about this online dating service or visit Tinder directly.

This Year's Runner Up for this award is: Hinge