Studies

Most daters are reluctant to reach out to someone of a different race on an online dating site, but will respond if they are approached first, according to a new study.

Although we think of ourselves as a post-racial society, the study showed clearly that the vast majority of online daters prefer to initiate contact with daters who share the same ethnic background. It seems most people feel comfortable dating, or at least reaching out to people with the same ethnic background. There's no clear data yet on why, though the assumption is that people expect to have less in common with others who don't share their heritage.

The data was different however, when daters were approached by someone outside their race. They were more likely to respond because someone else had reached out and said he/she was interested - in a sense, breaking the ice. Interestingly, these daters then would reciprocate - they were more likely to search and reach out to daters outside their race in future interactions. The lesson? It pays to make the first move.

Kevin Lewis, a researcher at University of California San Diego who headed the study told the New York Daily News, "We expect that someone from a different background wouldn't be interested in us. The willingness to reciprocate may tell us more about site users' 'real' preferences than their willingness to initiate contact."

The group most likely to initiate contact outside of their own race were white males. Asian women stood out too, as they were more willing to communicate with men outside of their race than within it. Once contacted by someone from another race, their exchanges went up 238%.

The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and researched over 126,000 OkCupid users to find out about their messaging preferences when it comes to dating outside of their race. They looked at messages sent between October and December of 2010. All identifying information related to OkCupid member messages was blocked, so that researchers only saw race, gender, and the timestamp of the messages in addition to the content.

Even though interracial marriages have increased significantly over the last 30 years according to the latest Pew research, with one in twelve marriages being mixed-race, we haven't known much about the behaviors and preferences of online daters and how many of them are open to dating outside of their race. This has been the first study to give insight to the early stages of a relationship in terms of race.

The number of Americans using Internet dating services has tripled over the last five years, says a detailed new survey by the Pew Internet Project. Based on interviews with 2,252 American adults, the survey also found a few ways in which dating in the Internet age differs for men and women.

Undesirable contact and outright harassment are considerably bigger issues for women who date online. 42% of female survey respondents say they've been subjected to unwanted approaches, compared to only 17% of men who say the same. The same goes for social networking sites, where 33% of women and only 19% of men say they've blocked someone who was making them feel uncomfortable.

Though those differences aren't insignificant, both sexes also have plenty in common. Men and women have similar success rates when dating online. 22% of online daters, regardless of gender, say they found a long-term relationship or a marriage using Internet dating services. Both men and women are also equally likely (54%) to complain about being misled by someone whose profile was deceptive.

And what the sexes really agree on is what they're actually using the Internet for: snooping. When Pew conducted its last major study on the role of the Internet in Americans' love lives, using search engines and social networking sites to keep tabs on exes and investigate future romantic prospects was not nearly the phenomenon it is now. That was back in 2005, before Facebook had officially become available to the general public and before smartphone usage had exploded.

Now, with those and many more technological innovations, it has become infinitely easier to get our snoop on. Just 11% of daters admitted to conducting online searches for information about dates in 2005. Now nearly a quarter of Internet users (24%) say they are guilty of researching dates and the number goes up (38%) if they're actively involved in the dating scene. 29% say they have searched online for information about someone they are currently dating or are considering dating, a number that was only 13% in 2005.

6 out of 10 Americans are now users of social networking services, which we have also turned into tools for stalking former flames. 1 in 3 say they've visited an ex-partner's profile to see what they've been up to. 30% of social network users who are active daters report using such services to collect intel on potential partners as well. For Internet users aged 18 to 29, that number jumps to 41%.

Like it or not, most of us have snooped at one point or another and it begs the question: which would we be more willing to give up, our ability to find new partners on the Internet, or our ability to find out about partners on the Internet?

Newsflash #1: the new study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project says that online dating is now completely commonplace.

Newsflash #2: that is totally not a newsflash. There's pretty much no one left on the planet who doesn't know that online dating is a perfectly acceptable way to meet your partner these days.

This latest study to look into the world of online romance says that 11% of American adults have tried online dating sites, 38% of whom identify as "single and looking for a partner." And if they themselves aren't searching for love online, they almost certainly know someone who is: 42% of American adults who use the Internet say they are personally connected to someone who uses a dating site.

The last time Pew asked Americans about their dating habits was 2005, and as you can imagine, things are more than a little different now. Since then, the rate of people who find long-term relationships using online dating sites has soared dramatically, from 15% of Americans in 2005 to 29% of Americans in 2013. The biggest booms have been seen amongst college graduates, individuals in higher income brackets, and singles over age 65.

For the most part, attitudes towards online dating are positive. 59% of those Pew surveyed say they believe online dating is a good way to meet people, which explains why 46% of them are using dating sites to find a long-term relationship or marriage.

Still, it's not all good news for online dating. Many believe that having easy access to so many potential partners actually reduces the chance of finding a long-term relationship, and a fifth of respondents say they feel that online dating is "desperate" despite all the progress it's made. That number, however, has dropped from where it was in 2005 and will likely continue dropping.

Online daters are also concerned about other users lying about themselves online. The majority say they have encountered someone who they felt "seriously misrepresented" himself or herself on a dating site, while 28% report being contacted by someone through a dating service or app in a way that made them feel uncomfortable.

On the whole, though, online dating is marching confidently and triumphantly into the future. And that future, for those who are curious, is probably in mobile apps. For now only 3% of American adults say they're using their smartphones to find love, but with mobile usage increasing in leaps and bounds all the time, it's bound to conquer the dating world soon.

"For as long as romantic relationships have existed," says the new survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, "people have sought assistance in meeting potential partners using whatever options were at their disposal."

And for as long as scientific studies have existed, say I, researchers have been trying to explain love via facts, figures, and other data.

The latest in that long line of relationship research is the 2013 Online Dating & Relationships study conducted by Pew. "The rise of tech-enabled dating help has been one of the most striking developments of the digital era," continues the study, "and these alternative ways of meeting and mating have arisen at a time of fundamental change in the structure of marriage and divorce in America."

The number of Americans getting married is steadily declining and today it is at a record low of 51%, down from the 72% of adults who were married in 1960. Americans are also postponing marriage until later in life, and are often choosing other options - including cohabitation and single person households - instead. But fear not - the institution is not yet dead. Around 61% of men and women who have never married say that tying the knot is in their plans someday.

While there are few left who disagree that online dating is a good way to meet potential partners, some have claimed it actually produces more successful relationships than traditional offline dating. Research is so far inconclusive on that matter, but what it has proven is that online dating and offline dating offer noticeably different experiences.

The perks of online dating include:

• The ability to draw from a deep pool of potential partners that goes well outside of one's existing social networks
• The ability to communicate online or via email prior to arranging a face-to-face meeting
• Matching algorithms that help users to filter potential partners based on pre-existing criteria
• More opportunities for members of niche communities who have limited options for meeting people in real life

On the other hand, online dating nay-sayers believe that the rise of online dating is contributing to the downfall of committed relationships. Young adults are not motivated to choose marriage, they argue, because online dating provides an endless stream of romantic and sexual options that lowers their interest in long-term relationships.

Much has changed, not just our approaches to marriage and commitment, since Pew last conducted a survey like this. 2005 saw the Pew Research Center's last foray into the Internet's impact on dating and relationships. In the intervening years, mobile phone usage has exploded (the iPhone hadn't even been born yet!) and social networking sites have taken over the Web. The ways in which people seek out, research, meet, and interact with potential partners will never be the same.

Is online dating still a last resort for singles? Not according to the latest Pew Internet and American Life study released in late October.

Research revealed that one in ten American adults have used online dating sites such as Match.com, eHarmony or OkCupid. Even more interesting was that 7% of mobile users said they've used a mobile dating app, showing that mobile dating has grown rapidly since the apps first appeared a few years ago.

The study showed that attitudes about online dating have changed since 2005 when the last survey was conducted. A majority of Americans are generally positive about online dating. Among those polled, 59 percent agreed with the statement that "online dating is a good way to meet people," compared with just 44 percent in 2005. And 52 percent agreed with the sentiment that "online dating allows people to find a better match for themselves because they can get to know a lot more people," up from 29 percent in 2005.

Even more impressive was that 42% of Internet users say they know someone who is using a dating website, even if they aren't themselves, up from 31% in 2005. Also, 29% know someone who married or had a long-term relationship with a person they met through online dating, compared with 15% in the last survey.

Not everyone is so smitten with online dating, however. Twenty-one percent agreed with the comment that "people who use online dating sites are desperate," though that was down from 29 percent in 2005. Also, Pew posed a first-time question in the study, asking "does online dating keep people from settling down because they always have options for people to date?" Thirty-two percent answered in the affirmative.

The more interesting findings were in some of the experiences people had on online dating sites. Fifty-four percent "felt someone else seriously misrepresented themselves in their profile," and 28% "have been contacted by someone through an online dating site or app in a way that made them feel harassed or uncomfortable." Forty-two percent of women felt this way, compared to only 17% of men.

The report is based on a survey of 2,252 adults aged 18 and older. According to the report's lead author Aaron Smith, "we're not just looking at users of a particular site or a convenience sample. We have the ability to look at a nationally representative portion of the population to show not only what's happening now but how those behaviors have changed over a period of time."

Not to brag or anything, but I think we ladies have it pretty good when it comes to the dating game. Sure, everybody has their ups and downs, but if we look at the way things are often run around here, we definitely seem to come out ahead in the online dating world.

Josh Fischer, the Director of Product Insights at SNAP Interactive, the company that owns Are You Interested, put together a collection of charts that shows exactly how women have the advantage over men on online dating sites. Each chart examines the probability that men and women respond to messages given the age of the message's sender.

The likelihood that an American woman responds to a man on AYI.com drops significantly as the age gap between them increases. The younger the man is, relative to the woman, the better shot he has. The probability of receiving a response peaks when the man is 7-8 years younger than the woman, and steadily declines from there.

The likelihood that an American man responds to a woman on AYI.com varies much more, and the response rates across all age differences are far higher. In fact, it actually dips the lowest when the man is 7-8 years younger than the woman. Merge the charts together, and they don't ever cross paths. Not even once.

Over all, AYI's charts show that, when comparing men and women responding to people their own age, women respond to men 4% of the time while men respond to women around 18% of the time. In other words, the vast majority of messages go unanswered regardless of age or gender.

It also means that the average straight man will have to send 25 messages to women his own age in order to receive one response, while the average straight woman will have to send just 5 messages. Hardly fair, if you ask me.

According to BusinessInsider.com, these conclusions can also be drawn from the data:

• A straight man's best bet is to go the Mrs. Robinson route. The 8-10% chance that a woman 10-8 years older than a man will respond to a message is double the rate of his own peers.
• The New York Jets have better odds of going to the Superbowl this year than men of a certain age have of getting a response from a woman ten years younger. Ouch.
• At worst, there's a 1 in 6 chance a man will respond to a woman's message regardless of her age. So go for it, ladies - you've clearly got nothing to lose.