Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2013 Jun 18;110(25):10135-40.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1222447110. Epub 2013 Jun 3.

Marital satisfaction and break-ups differ across on-line and off-line meeting venues

John T Cacioppo  1 , Stephanie Cacioppo, Gian C Gonzaga, Elizabeth L Ogburn, Tyler J VanderWeele
Affiliations

Marital satisfaction and break-ups differ across on-line and off-line meeting venues

John T Cacioppo et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

Marital discord is costly to children, families, and communities. The advent of the Internet, social networking, and on-line dating has affected how people meet future spouses, but little is known about the prevalence or outcomes of these marriages or the demographics of those involved. We addressed these questions in a nationally representative sample of 19,131 respondents who married between 2005 and 2012. Results indicate that more than one-third of marriages in America now begin on-line. In addition, marriages that began on-line, when compared with those that began through traditional off-line venues, were slightly less likely to result in a marital break-up (separation or divorce) and were associated with slightly higher marital satisfaction among those respondents who remained married. Demographic differences were identified between respondents who met their spouse through on-line vs. traditional off-line venues, but the findings for marital break-up and marital satisfaction remained significant after statistically controlling for these differences. These data suggest that the Internet may be altering the dynamics and outcomes of marriage itself.

Keywords: dyads; marital outcomes; social relationships.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest statement: Harris Interactive was commissioned by eHarmony.com to perform a nationally representative survey of individuals in America married between 2005 and 2012. Harris Interactive was not involved in data analyses. J.T.C. is a scientific advisor to eHarmony.com, S.C. is the spouse of J.T.C., and G.C.G. is the former Director of eHarmony Laboratories. To ensure the integrity of the data and analyses and in accordance with procedures specified by JAMA, independent statisticians (E.L.O. and T.J.V.) oversaw and verified the statistical analyses based on a prespecified plan for data analyses. In addition, an agreement with eHarmony was reached prior to the analyses of the data to ensure that any results bearing on eHarmony.com would not affect the publication of the study. The materials and methods used (including the Harris Survey, Codebook, and Datafile) are provided in the Appendix S1, Appendix S2, and Dataset S1 to ensure transparency and objectivity.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
(A) Marital status among the 19,131 (unweighted) respondents. (B) Meeting venue. (C) Offline meeting site. 21.66% of the respondents who met their spouse offline met through work, 19.06% through friends, 10.97% at school, 6.77% through family, 8.73% at a bar/club, 4.09% at a place of worship, 9.99% at a social gathering, 7.57% grew up together, 2.66% met on a blind date, and 8.51% met through “other” venues. (D) Online meeting site. Of the respondents who met their spouse online, 4.64% met through instant messaging, 2.04% through e-mail, 9.51% in a chat room, 1.89% through a discussion group/posting board, 20.87% through social network, 2.13% in a virtual world, 3.59% on a multiplayer game site, 6.18% in an online community, 1.59% on a message/blog site, 45.01% through an online dating site, and 2.51% met through “other” online venues. (E) Online dating site. Of the 45.01% who met through an online dating site, 25.04% met on eHarmony, 24.34% on Match, 7.21% on Yahoo, 5.71% on Plenty of Fish (POF), 24.74% were spread in smaller numbers (<100) across the remaining 14 dating sites specified in the survey (labeled hereafter as “small”), and 13.09% met on a dating site they specified as “other.”
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012. American Time Use Survey – 2011 Results (USDL-12-1246). Available at www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t11.htm. Accessed May 13, 2013.
    1. Rosenfeld MJ, Thomas RJ. Searching for a mate: The rise of the Internet as a social intermediary. Am Sociol Rev. 2012;77(4):523–547.
    1. Finkel EJ, Eastwick PW, Karney BR, Reis HT, Sprecher S. Online dating: A critical analysis from the perspective of psychological science. Psychological Science in the Public Interest. 2012;13(1):3–66. - PubMed
    1. Gergen KJ, Gergen MM, Barton WH. Deviance in the dark. Psychol Today. 1973;7:129–130.
    1. McKenna KYA, Green AS, Gleason MEJ. Relationship formation on the internet: What’s the big attraction? J Soc Issues. 2002;58(1):9–31.

MeSH terms