Couples who meet over dating apps actually want to move in together quickly and have children, while highly educated women find it easier to meet less educated men on the Internet. Recent studies into love in an age of online dating are upending common assumptions. Internet dating sites were still a niche phenomenon some 10 to 15 years ago. But today, online dating has definitely gone mainstream.
Across the world, more than 40 million people use Tinder every month. They believe that this immense freedom of choice to which we are exposed has deprived people of the will and even the ability to engage in real, lasting relationships. Together with his colleague Olivier Voirol at the University of Lausanne, he has examined the structures of dating portals and conducted extensive interviews with men and women, some of whom have been searching online for a partner for many years.
This is someone who conducts their search for a partner in a rationalised, strategic manner, in line with notions of mass consumption; but they are also seeking intimacy, emotion and the magic of fate. Surprisingly, the Internet does not seem to prove any obstacle to developing romantic feelings. On the contrary: it can actually fire them up. He has several explanations for this. The online medium also offers a lot of space for our imagination. Disappointment is therefore often all the greater when people have their first encounter in physical space.
An obvious solution to this would be for people to meet sooner and thereby bring forward the moment of decision. Apps like Tinder promote this.
Long chats are frowned upon there, and the goal is a swift physical encounter. Many users chat simultaneously with several potential matches — sometimes even dozens of them. And yet many people do find each other online. According to a study conducted by the University of Geneva, every fourth couple that came together in Switzerland in and met online.
