Online Dating

Finkel, Eastwick, Karney, Reis, and Sprecher (2012, this issue) have provided a remarkably comprehensive, thoughtful, scholarly, and timely monograph. It is also extremely important. As the data they cite show, online dating, particularly in developed countries, already accounts for a substantial proportion of the initiation of romantic relationships—a proportion growing at a rate suggesting it may soon account for the majority of such meetings. Thus, online dating is significant as a major social phenomenon. More crucially, the quality of our close relationships is the single biggest contributor to personal well-being and one of the largest contributors to health and longevity. Thus, understanding a phenomenon that is changing the landscape for the formation of such relationships bears on fundamental issues in human life. (As an aside, this monograph also contributes to the basic science of relationships by offering a wonderfully thorough and up-to-date review of the research literature on key factors in romantic attraction and on the predictors of relationship success.) Frankly, although my original intention was a quick read while waiting for the take off of a plane I was on, I found myself so engaged that by the time I had read it (and often reread sections while making a zillion little notes), the pilot was announcing it was time to prepare for landing. Several conclusions, all well supported, from their review stand out about online dating as it currently exists. First, it has significant benefits: increased opportunities to meet potential partners, minimally threatening contexts for initiating relationships, and the possibility of “omitting from the dating pool people who are likely to be poor relationship partners in gen