Online dating cuts out the middlemen

This information is from a 2019 prepublication Stanford study:

“We present new data from a nationally representative 2017 survey showing that meeting online has continued to grow for heterosexual couples, and meeting through friends has continued its sharp decline. As a result of the continued rise of meeting online and the decline of meeting through friends, online has become the most popular way heterosexual couples in the U.S.

Meeting through friends and family provided guarantees that any potential partner had been personally vetted and vouched for by trusted alters. We would expect any rise in Internet dating to reinforce rather than to displace the traditional roles of friends and family as introducers and intermediaries. [Hypothesis 2]

Results reflect support of Hypothesis 1, as the percentage of heterosexual couples meeting online has surged in the post‐2009 smart phone era. Because the results show that meeting online has displaced meeting through friends and meeting through family, we find evidence to reject Hypothesis 2, which led us to expect that online dating would reinforce existing face‐to‐face social networks.

Figure 1’s apparent post‐2010 rise in meeting through bars and restaurants for heterosexual couples is due entirely to couples who met online and subsequently had a first in‐person meeting at a bar or restaurant or other establishment where people gather and socialize. If we exclude the couples who first met online from the bar/restaurant category, the bar/restaurant category was significantly declining after 1995 as a venue for heterosexual couples to meet.”

Are there examples where it wouldn’t potentially improve a person’s life to choose their information sources? Friends, family, and other social groups – and religious, educational, and other institutions – have had their middlemen / guarantor time, and have been found lacking.

Make your own choices for your one precious life. Similar themes are explored in:

https://web.stanford.edu/~mrosenfe/Rosenfeld_et_al_Disintermediating_Friends.pdf “Disintermediating your friends”