If you’re searching online for the love of your life, you might need to take a longer look at those dating ‘success’ stories. According to a new study, couples who meet online are less likely to get married, and more likely to split up.
The research, which combined results from two separate studies "Is Online Better Than Offline for Meeting Partners? Depends: Are You Looking to Marry or to Date?" and “How Couples Meet and Stay Together”, examined the love lives of more than 4,000 US adults in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2013. Of those interviewed 3,009 adults had a spouse or significant other.
Aditi Paul, author of the study, analysed the first study’s data to see whether couples who met online had better romantic outcomes than those who met offline.
Paul found that couples who met online were less likely to get married than couples who met in real life. What's more, both married and dating couples who met online had higher break-up rates than their offline counterparts.
So why are the online daters finding it harder to make their relationship work?
Paul cites a 2013 study, which reported that the variety of choices in online dating means people are less likely to struggle through difficulties in a relationship:
"Online daters know that they can easily look for other potential partners from the dating sites.”
The study also reveals that online dating means people are less willing to commit to marriage, as they fear they could be missing out on ‘the one’. The results also reflected less trust amongst online daters, with most users believing it takes longer to get to know someone due to mistrust or lies told in an online dating profile.
Paul’s findings come as one third of marriages in the US have reportedly began as online relationships.
