If you met your partner via an Online Dating site, you aren’t alone. Since 1995, dating websites have risen to be the No. 2 way that people find dates and, for many, choose a husband or wife.
There is no disputing the impact Dating Sites have on choosing long-term partners. Using a dating site is the second most popular method to find a mate for heterosexuals and the number one for homosexuals.
But, this isn’t the biggest change in the dating and marriage scene caused by online dating. According to a paper recently published in The MIT Technology Review, dating sites might be the single greatest influence on the rise of interracial marriages.
The paper was written by two scientists, Josue Ortega at the University of Essex in the U.K. and Philipp Hergovich at the University of Vienna in Austria. They created a model using the networks of people and watching how the networks changed when people met online.
This is how your ancestors dated
What science has known for years, is people generally marry people they meet through friends and relatives. Few people marry friends in their close social circles, but they do marry people through their friend’s connections. In fact, that is the most common way people meet their partners, through friends of friends.
The further you move out from your network by meeting people in other networks, the more likely you are to meet people far different than your immediate network.
Swiping left or right changed the marriage scene
However, online dating changed those connections, because the majority of people meeting online are strangers. So, online daters are going far outside their usual demographics of friends. This includes the race of dating partners.
Over time, the increase in interracial dating naturally leads to an increase in interracial marriages.
The scientists say the number or frequency of interracial marriages is important because it is an indicator of the social distance in our society.
Ortega and Hergovich report that since the introduction of online dating, the number of interracial marriages has dramatically increased. The number continued to increase steadily as the popularity of the sites grew, but it really jumped in 2014 when Tinder became the most popular dating website.
Tinder produces 12 million matches a day.
Online dating might be the answer for finding a lifelong partner
Other surprising benefits of online dating have to do with the longevity of marriages. People who met through online dating sites and married tend to have longer and stronger marriages than those who met in traditional ways.
While all of this is interesting, the scientists point out that online dating isn’t the only reason for the change in interracial marriage. For instance, the scientists point out that the shifting population numbers of the different races have an impact, but they don’t believe that could explain the increase in interracial marriages.
One aspect science has ruled out is the proprietary algorithms the sites use to match people. According to a Scientific American report, there is no conclusive evidence proving the algorithms are better than people at choosing the perfect match.
