No Romance Without Internet Access

Wednesday, August 18, 2010, 15:49

According to a new research it was revealed that the adults who have Internet access at home are more likely to be in a romantic relationships than adults without Internet access. Michael Rosenfeld of Stanford University and the lead author of the study has stated that , “ Although prior research on the social impacts of Internet use has been rather ambiguous about the social cost of time spent online, our research suggests that Internet access has an important role to play in helping Americans find mates."

About 82.2 percent of the participants who had the access of internet at their home also had a spouse or a romantic partner when compared to a 62.8 percent partnership rate for adults who did not have internet access.
The paper uses data from Wave I of the How Couples Meet and Stay Together (HCMST) survey, a nationally representative survey of 4,002 adults, of whom 3,009 had a spouse or romantic partner.

It was also found that the internet is the one social arena that is unambiguously gaining importance over time as a place where couples meet as stated by Rosenfeld and Reuben J. Thomas of City University of New York. She also added that, “ With the meteoric rise of the Internet as a way couples have met in the past few years, and the concomitant recent decline in the central role of friends, it is possible that in the next several years the Internet could eclipse friends as the most influential way Americans meet their romantic partners, displacing friends out of the top position for the first time since the early 1940s."

The internet no w has become so advanced that it is become important to those who are looking for potential partners in groups where the supply is small or difficult to identify such as in the gay, lesbian, and middle-aged heterosexual communities.

Rosenfeld further added that ," Couples who meet online are much more likely to be same-sex couples, and somewhat more likely to be from different religious backgrounds."