7 ms·

There's No Evidence Online Dating Is Threatening Commitment or Marriage

51 points by scottkduncan 14y ago

mr_luc 14y ago
First, it seems like both articles say "there's no real data, but ...", so I wonder why both articles are on the front page of Hacker News. I guess this article deserves the upvotes, though, because it points out that fact in its title. Second, I notice that the few stats in this article refer to "using Internet to find partners," and the question isn't about partners but length of partnership. Third, this article reminds me of the 'industry rebuttal' to one of pg's essays - the one about how glossy magazines all cost the same - which cried out to a whole industry "please rebut this." Someone had to publish a rebuttal, so someone did - although their 'rebuttal' was basically just pointing out that Sarah Palin's new book sold a lot of copies. In this case, the industry is the online dating industry. This article is the industry rebuttal. It happens to be correct, but there's just something weird about this kind of article to me, and the eHarmony shirts in the accompanying picture smell of PR.
danso 14y ago
> Narratively, the story focuses on Jacob, an overgrown manchild jackass who can't figure out what it takes to have a real relationship. The problem, however, is not him, and his desire for a "low-maintenance" woman who is hot, young, interested in him, and doesn't mind that he is callow and doesn't care very much about her. No, the problem is online dating, which has shown Jacob that he can have a steady stream of mediocre dates, some of whom will have sex with him. I basically stopped reading at the ad hominem. An article that claims to be about "evidence" clearly is not if it needs to win reader approval by bashing the opposing subject. This was a theme in the Atlantic's comments section of the article in question, too. We can't tell if Jacob is truly a "douche" or not. The last article was all about him but mainly focused on his dating life and not other circumstances of it. And he sounds like an average male professional...what seems offensive is that we're more privy to his desires and decisions and as they say, familiarity breeds contempt. The OP also blasts the article for not including a single female voice. If we're trying to make an objective evaluation of the effect of online dating, then it does not matter if the article is single gender (either male or female). If it can be argued convincingly that one-half of a couple has much more incentive to leave, then that by definition is enough to have an effect on traditional relationships, no matter what the other gender thinks
- icebraining 14y ago
  That's not an ad hominem. An ad hominem is a personal attack on the author of the argument (i.e., Dan Slater). This is a refutation of the actual argument. It may not be well grounded, but that's another issue.
- mattchew 14y ago
  > We can't tell if Jacob is truly a "douche" or not. He had a girlfriend for five years and didn't marry her, and then had a girlfriend for two years and didn't marry her. That doesn't mean he's a douche, but he's not much of a prize either. I suppose this attitude is a generation or more out of date. But it sure looks to me like the younger generation is screwing it up bad. Guess I'd better get some signs to post on my lawn.
  - evincarofautumn 14y ago
    Counterexample: my girlfriend and I have been together for about two years, love each other deeply, and are strongly committed to one another. And still, for us, marriage is basically a political and financial decision. So if she can get a free ride at some school where I can get a professorship, or if one of our jobs transfers us overseas, or if we can get a significant break on our taxes by filing jointly, then we’ll do it. Gaming the system is awesome. Otherwise, marriage just doesn’t mean anything to us.
    - abrowne 14y ago
      This is exactly how my partner and I feel. I was able to get a Canadian work permit as her common-law spouse, so we didn't need to get married when she did grad school in Canada. (We're from the US.) Until there's some other reason to get married, we have little interest in doing so. [edit: added closing parenthesis]
  - NickPollard 14y ago
    What's wrong with having a girlfriend for five years and not marrying her? It might be unusual, but it's not wrong. Some people aren't into marriage. Some people like to wait - my brother was in a relationship over 10 years before he proposed (and is now happily married). Don't judge everyone by your own ideas.
rayiner 14y ago
If anything I think the opposite is true. Guys online are far more interested in relationships than guys on the bar circuit and other such places.
- jonathanjaeger 14y ago
  That's a good point. On average, a single guy out with his friends at a bar or club and with a few drinks in him on a Friday night is thinking about one thing. Yeah, maybe he would be great boyfriend material otherwise, but on that Friday night he's thinking about one thing (or at least mostly one thing). That same average guy on a dating site without those other dynamics might act differently.
mistercow 14y ago
I like that this article focuses on the word "commitment" rather than "monogamy", instead of conflating them like the first article did.
Pkeod 14y ago
If anyone has not been exposed to Girl Writes What I highly recommend her. A video by her on the marriage topic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlvMAS_20K4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlvMAS_20K4
- Tichy 14y ago
  Does she have a blog or something? Video is too slow.
lucian1900 14y ago
There's also no evidence cats can levitate. I don't get it.
return0 14y ago
Certainly there is a cause-and effect misunderstanding if one says that online dating is threatening monogamy. Monogamy is in crisis for decades as divorce rates (and sex tourism, and the rise of the man-o-sphere) show, and there doesn't seem to be a reversing trend. Online dating is just capitalizing on the trend, nothing more. It's very probable that in the not too distant future commitment will lose its high social value. The question is if societies are prepared in order to avoid side casualties (children).
ScottBurson 14y ago
And more choices mean less satisfaction. For example, if you give people more chocolate bars to choose from, the story tells us, they think the one they choose tastes worse than a control group who had a smaller selection. Huh. It's the opposite for me -- the more possibilities I can check out, the better I feel about my choice in the end. (Maybe that's one reason I didn't marry until age 42 :-) HN readers -- do you agree with this study, or not?
- jvm 14y ago
  The study didn't find that this was true in every case. It found that it was more often true than false in the task that they chose. I'm not totally up on this literature but I'm fairly sure that it's been replicated repeatedly in a variety of domains.
  - ScottBurson 14y ago
    Oh, I don't doubt that it's true of most people. I'm interested in the next question: are there interesting characteristics shared by people that this isn't true of?
kordless 14y ago
Wow. Alexis Madrigal is a massively negative person. I refuse to read anything with such tone.
npsimons 14y ago
I have to ask, is there anyone who honestly believed this?

51 points by scottkduncan 14y ago

First, it seems like both articles say "there's no real data, but ...", so I wonder why both articles are on the front page of Hacker News. I guess this article deserves the upvotes, though, because it points out that fact in its title. Second, I notice that the few stats in this article refer to "using Internet to find partners," and the question isn't about partners but length of partnership. Third, this article reminds me of the 'industry rebuttal' to one of pg's essays - the one about how glossy magazines all cost the same - which cried out to a whole industry "please rebut this." Someone had to publish a rebuttal, so someone did - although their 'rebuttal' was basically just pointing out that Sarah Palin's new book sold a lot of copies. In this case, the industry is the online dating industry. This article is the industry rebuttal. It happens to be correct, but there's just something weird about this kind of article to me, and the eHarmony shirts in the accompanying picture smell of PR.

danso 14y ago

> Narratively, the story focuses on Jacob, an overgrown manchild jackass who can't figure out what it takes to have a real relationship. The problem, however, is not him, and his desire for a "low-maintenance" woman who is hot, young, interested in him, and doesn't mind that he is callow and doesn't care very much about her. No, the problem is online dating, which has shown Jacob that he can have a steady stream of mediocre dates, some of whom will have sex with him. I basically stopped reading at the ad hominem. An article that claims to be about "evidence" clearly is not if it needs to win reader approval by bashing the opposing subject. This was a theme in the Atlantic's comments section of the article in question, too. We can't tell if Jacob is truly a "douche" or not. The last article was all about him but mainly focused on his dating life and not other circumstances of it. And he sounds like an average male professional...what seems offensive is that we're more privy to his desires and decisions and as they say, familiarity breeds contempt. The OP also blasts the article for not including a single female voice. If we're trying to make an objective evaluation of the effect of online dating, then it does not matter if the article is single gender (either male or female). If it can be argued convincingly that one-half of a couple has much more incentive to leave, then that by definition is enough to have an effect on traditional relationships, no matter what the other gender thinks

icebraining 14y ago
That's not an ad hominem. An ad hominem is a personal attack on the author of the argument (i.e., Dan Slater). This is a refutation of the actual argument. It may not be well grounded, but that's another issue.
mattchew 14y ago
> We can't tell if Jacob is truly a "douche" or not. He had a girlfriend for five years and didn't marry her, and then had a girlfriend for two years and didn't marry her. That doesn't mean he's a douche, but he's not much of a prize either. I suppose this attitude is a generation or more out of date. But it sure looks to me like the younger generation is screwing it up bad. Guess I'd better get some signs to post on my lawn.
- evincarofautumn 14y ago
  Counterexample: my girlfriend and I have been together for about two years, love each other deeply, and are strongly committed to one another. And still, for us, marriage is basically a political and financial decision. So if she can get a free ride at some school where I can get a professorship, or if one of our jobs transfers us overseas, or if we can get a significant break on our taxes by filing jointly, then we’ll do it. Gaming the system is awesome. Otherwise, marriage just doesn’t mean anything to us.
  - abrowne 14y ago
    This is exactly how my partner and I feel. I was able to get a Canadian work permit as her common-law spouse, so we didn't need to get married when she did grad school in Canada. (We're from the US.) Until there's some other reason to get married, we have little interest in doing so. [edit: added closing parenthesis]
- NickPollard 14y ago
  What's wrong with having a girlfriend for five years and not marrying her? It might be unusual, but it's not wrong. Some people aren't into marriage. Some people like to wait - my brother was in a relationship over 10 years before he proposed (and is now happily married). Don't judge everyone by your own ideas.

rayiner 14y ago

If anything I think the opposite is true. Guys online are far more interested in relationships than guys on the bar circuit and other such places.

jonathanjaeger 14y ago
That's a good point. On average, a single guy out with his friends at a bar or club and with a few drinks in him on a Friday night is thinking about one thing. Yeah, maybe he would be great boyfriend material otherwise, but on that Friday night he's thinking about one thing (or at least mostly one thing). That same average guy on a dating site without those other dynamics might act differently.

mistercow 14y ago

I like that this article focuses on the word "commitment" rather than "monogamy", instead of conflating them like the first article did.

Pkeod 14y ago

If anyone has not been exposed to Girl Writes What I highly recommend her. A video by her on the marriage topic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlvMAS_20K4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlvMAS_20K4

Tichy 14y ago
Does she have a blog or something? Video is too slow.

lucian1900 14y ago

There's also no evidence cats can levitate. I don't get it.

return0 14y ago

Certainly there is a cause-and effect misunderstanding if one says that online dating is threatening monogamy. Monogamy is in crisis for decades as divorce rates (and sex tourism, and the rise of the man-o-sphere) show, and there doesn't seem to be a reversing trend. Online dating is just capitalizing on the trend, nothing more. It's very probable that in the not too distant future commitment will lose its high social value. The question is if societies are prepared in order to avoid side casualties (children).

ScottBurson 14y ago

And more choices mean less satisfaction. For example, if you give people more chocolate bars to choose from, the story tells us, they think the one they choose tastes worse than a control group who had a smaller selection. Huh. It's the opposite for me -- the more possibilities I can check out, the better I feel about my choice in the end. (Maybe that's one reason I didn't marry until age 42 :-) HN readers -- do you agree with this study, or not?

jvm 14y ago
The study didn't find that this was true in every case. It found that it was more often true than false in the task that they chose. I'm not totally up on this literature but I'm fairly sure that it's been replicated repeatedly in a variety of domains.
- ScottBurson 14y ago
  Oh, I don't doubt that it's true of most people. I'm interested in the next question: are there interesting characteristics shared by people that this isn't true of?

kordless 14y ago

Wow. Alexis Madrigal is a massively negative person. I refuse to read anything with such tone.

npsimons 14y ago

I have to ask, is there anyone who honestly believed this?