Online Dating and Matchmaking Industry Forums

Fernando Ardenghi · Guest

Although a bit old, there is a quite interesting thesis at
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~atf/thesis_mit/

My comments:
The thesis' name is "An Analysis of Behavior in Online Dating Systems"
but it was only "Analysis of Behavior on ONE Dating System" (page 30)
Nonetheless it will be interesting to read it with care.
The conclusions were taken from a dating site (date research from June 2002 to February 2003) with 52857 "active members" over a total of 221800 members. The median age was 34 years old (page 38. )

The findings: "Users opted for sameness more often than chance would predict in all the characteristics examined in this section. This concurs with the overwhelming evidence gathered by relationship researchers ...... that actual similarity and perceived similarity in demographics, attitudes, values, and attractiveness correlate with attraction (and, later, relationship satisfaction). However, users demonstrate this homophily to differing degrees for different characteristics." (page 47)

Nonetheless more valuable than the information provided is THE WAY research was conducted and fig. 2.1 at page 37, fig. 2.6 at page 54 and fig. B.13 at page 90.

As the author says on page 62 "My exploration of behavior in online dating environments raises more questions than it answers. Each statistic begs for comparison with other online dating systems, with different populations and different interactional tools. The numerical results have human stories behind them that will require a complementary qualitative approach to unravel.
Of course, the real question is what people are looking for in a partner, whether for a night, a date, or a lifetime. Online dating systems provide a copious amount of raw behavioral data that might improve our understanding of people’s complex goals in this arena, which will in turn help us improve the systems themselves."

Regards,

Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com