The Benefits of Online Dating to Society

Our society continues to be affected both negatively and positively – as technologies become more and more integrated into our society. While many technologies have negative effects on our society’s ability to become more integrated and pull us further apart. One specific technology that has had a positive impact on our society is online dating. Today's society has changed tremendously after the first online dating site began in 1995. This is now a commonly used website that goes by the name of Match.com. As surprising as it may seem online dating has actually been very beneficial to society through the way it can develop strong connections, in which individuals may not have been able to create without online dating.

Misunderstandings and differences between cultures in our society fuels many problems, including some racial and political issues that have been ongoing for many years. Fortunately, online dating has begun to turn that around by helping connect cultures that would normally not intermingle as often.

Unlike other social media where specific cultures will group up and possibly not connect as much, such as on Twitter and Facebook. Online dating does this by making interracial marriages more accessible, because there are multiple different races interacting with one another on these online dating sites. This results in many different races being able to come across each other more often in the dating world than they would without these online sites. A study to determine how online dating effected society conducted by two Economists, Josue Ortega and Phillip Hergovich shows us how online dating has helped interracial relationships climb in recent years. The increase of interracial relationships became more prevalent as online dating became more and more popular. 'The increase steepened at the turn of the 21st century in line with the rise in online dating, and then even further as swipe-to-match apps like Tinder went mainstream around 2014”. This study helps us get a better understanding of how online dating aids the integration of cultures in our society. Illustrating the increase in interracial relationships began to rise after the first dating site was created and then again after one of the most popular dating apps today went mainstream. From this correlation we can understand that as dating sites become more prevalent in our society, cultural integration will increase. Luckily online dating has begun to change this statistic as proven by Ortega and Hergovich. “It seemed like it was changing not just the number of interracial marriages, but also how we meet our spouses, and having other big consequences”. Creating a society with more inter-racial relationships, therefore creating a society that contains less cultural boundaries. Making the world a better place overall online dating has statistically proven to create longer lasting, stronger relationships. Therefore, eventually lowering the divorce rate and having a very beneficial effect on society.

Online dating has the ability to lower the divorce rate, therefore we must accept it into our society, due to the fact that divorces can have life changing effects on a child that is present during the divorce process. Furthermore, this would not only decrease the divorce rate but also decrease the number of children that have to go through this dreadful experience. Divorce could also potentially have negative long-term effects on the children that go through it. This technology creates longer lasting, and stronger relationships, with this information we can understand that stronger relationships or marriages results in lower divorce rate.

Online dating creates these higher quality relationships because people have multiple options therefore they can pick between multiple people that they already know are interested in them. Instead of not being certain that someone is interested in them. Online dating does this by having a certain type of match making technology, for example on Tinder the user swipes either right or left (like or dislike) on an individual, and if you both swipe right it allows you to start a conversation with each other. Also, there is normally some type of Bio, in which it tells you that person interests, age and a little bit about them. In the real world this might be a little more difficult and you may only know of one or two people that are interested in you and still know very little about them. Similar to the idea that Konnikova wrote in 'The Limits of Friendship', 'Isn't it easier to have more friends when we have Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to help us cultivate and maintain them?'. This quote shows it's easier to have more friends with help from online sites and apps. This also applies to online dating vs normal dating except you have a better chance of finding someone truly good for you and not settling for someone unfit. Likewise, one can easily find a partner that they are more likely to have a long lasting relationship with. Rather than having to go on multiple dates to find that special person, or thinking someone is the one for them but later finding out this is not true. Also online dating helps create more options for potential dates, and makes it easier to maintain these potential dates.

Anyone that has used any form of online dating would tell you how great online dating can be in the way it creates a much simpler method of meeting a new partner. Now that online dating is a popular technology, people can find a partner with the simple swipe of a finger or click of a button. Avoiding having to go out and physically meet someone at a specific place, such as a bar or club. Likewise, dating apps allow users to go online and see a background of the person before actually deciding to meet them. Which, for many is a much simpler task than physically having to go on date after date just to figure out an individual’s basic characteristics such as, their likes and dislikes. Some might say that this makes it easier for people to cheat on their spouse – as someone can hide the evidence with a simple press of the delete button. However, Online dating does not change how someone views cheating on their spouse . Therefore, it may make it easier to get away with, but it doesn’t change the morals that a person possesses, such as believing that cheating on your spouse is not morally correct.

Another problem some individuals have with online dating is that they believe it takes away from what they would consider traditional dating. However, online dating doesn’t take away the process of dating, it’s more of a way to get the ball rolling. It still contains all the basics to dating such as going out on dates, going out to eat, and doing exciting activities together. Therefore, if someone wants to partake in all the basic activities of dating but would rather have a jump start on getting to know the person, online dating is the perfect solution.

If we want our society to come together and be more culturally fluid than we must accept online dating as a positive technology in our life. Which fortunately seems to already have begun to happen — as more and more people are beginning to turn to online dating. Online dating is very beneficial to the multiple different cultures in our society’s ability to grow and become less divided. In the way it takes away the cultural boundaries that continue to divide the world as a whole. Not only does it make the dating process much easier, so you can find a potential spouse with much less effort. It also reduces the number of children that have to face divorce, which has the ability to tear families apart and even have long term negative effects on the children involved.