Marriage from online meetings is more stable, satisfying

Don Hankins

Like everything else, dating has moved online in recent years through a combination of organized dating services and incidental meetings (the Ars forums have enabled a number of matches). Now, a new survey of American households shows just how important this phenomenon has become: since 2005, a third of marriages were the result of online meetings, with nearly half of those coming through online dating services. The good news? Fewer relationships that started online ended up in divorce, and people were generally more satisfied with the ones that survived.

The numbers come from a survey sponsored by eHarmony, a dating site that frequently uses its advertisements to suggest that it makes matches based on psychologically validated personality profiles. As revealed in the conflict of interest statement, one of the researchers involved in the new study is a scientific advisor to eHarmony. But the researchers got the dating company to allow them to publish their survey analysis no matter what it showed, and the group hired an outside statistician to validate the work.

Overall, the survey included more than 19,000 people who had married between 2005 and 2012. Although it was performed online, the demographics of those who responded suggest it is broadly representative of the US population.