YOU HAD
ME @ LOL
boards, through online games, and
even technical support forums
for decades. Of 18 “cyberspace
couples” profiled in a 1998 study
published in Computer-Mediated
Communication Magazine, the
earliest connection took place in
1991 between two 25-year-olds
who met in a chat room. They
were later married.
Social media services are also
free, boast millions more members
and offer a degree of serendipity
absent from the love-by-algorithm
approach embraced by traditional
“THE MAJORITY
OF MEN DO NOT
NECESSARILY WANT
A RELATIONSHIP.
WHAT THEY
WANT, I’M SORRY
TO SAY, IS A
‘BOOTY CALL.’”
HUFFINGTON
10.14.12
online dating services. Each dating site boasts its own “scientific”
method it claims can pluck a soul
mate from the digital ether. OKCupid has a “patent-pending,”
“math-based matching system”
that computes the likelihood of
sparks flying based on a series of
questions about everything from
kinkiness to cheating. eHarmony,
with its “science of compatibility” matchmaking, touts a clinical
psychologist founder who claims
to have identified the “29 dimensions of compatibility” present in
all successful relationships.
But social psychology professors say what passes as “science”
is really just marketing jargon. In
a journal article published earlier
this year, researchers likened dating sites like Match.com to “supermarkets of love.” The report
cautioned that matchmaking sites,
with their seemingly endless array
of potential mates, could pressure
singles into a shopping mentality
that divides their attention, distracting them from true matches.
The trouble with love algorithms,
the researchers suggest, is their
reliance on personality attributes
that are far from the most important predictors of a relationship’s
success. The qualities that do