Slate on Internet Dating
Dahlia Lithwick has a fun piece in Slate about scattered initiatives to regulate online dating services. It includes a startling (to me) finding from the Pew Internet & American Life Project that “17 percent of online personals users said their efforts resulted in a long-term relationship or marriage.” Lithwick’s amusing conclusion:
The reason we aren’t really regulating Internet dating sites, then, seems to be that the courts and Congress, the sites and their clients, pretty much all agree that love, like the Web, is inherently a mess of half-truth anyhow.
Not to be a sourpuss, but I think she is a little hard on the internet. Love is much murkier. And, in true “law of the horse” fashion, I can’t see why fraud in love merits more regulation online than in any other setting. That is, things like bigamy and theft are out of bounds (and fibbing by the services, rather than by suitors, may be a form of consumer fraud). Otherwise, all’s — well, I wouldn’t say fair, but it’s at least legal.
Filed under: Media
just as in life,it’s a free for all. it’s prudent to do your homework and make your decisions without collusion.
I think it would interesting to see what percentage of marriages from online connections end in divorce in comparison to marriages that were non internet related.
I generally believe in online relationships being successful. It’s mathematics – probability of finding your perfect partner online is higher than in real life where people get impatient and marry whoever comes across
People should look at online dating as an extension to how they normally meet people. And with time being the most precious commodity, online dating can filter out incompatible matches.
next time i’m asked out for a date i’ll know what to do!