There's No Evidence Online Dating Is Threatening Commitment or Marriage

If anything I think the opposite is true. Guys online are far more interested in relationships than guys on the bar circuit and other such places.

First, it seems like both articles say "there's no real data, but ...", so I wonder why both articles are on the front page of Hacker News. I guess this article deserves the upvotes, though, because it points out that fact in its title.<p>Second, I notice that the few stats in this article refer to "using Internet to find partners," and the question isn't about partners but length of partnership.<p>Third, this article reminds me of the 'industry rebuttal' to one of pg's essays - the one about how glossy magazines all cost the same - which cried out to a whole industry "please rebut this." Someone had to publish a rebuttal, so someone did - although their 'rebuttal' was basically just pointing out that Sarah Palin's new book sold a lot of copies.<p>In this case, the industry is the online dating industry. This article is the industry rebuttal. It happens to be correct, but there's just something weird about this kind of article to me, and the eHarmony shirts in the accompanying picture smell of PR.

Certainly there is a cause-and effect misunderstanding if one says that online dating is threatening monogamy. Monogamy is in crisis for decades as divorce rates (and sex tourism, and the rise of the man-o-sphere) show, and there doesn't seem to be a reversing trend. Online dating is just capitalizing on the trend, nothing more. It's very probable that in the not too distant future commitment will lose its high social value. The question is if societies are prepared in order to avoid side casualties (children).

If anyone has not been exposed to Girl Writes What I highly recommend her. A video by her on the marriage topic: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlvMAS_20K4" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlvMAS_20K4</a>

I like that this article focuses on the word "commitment" rather than "monogamy", instead of conflating them like the first article did.

&#62; <i>Narratively, the story focuses on Jacob, an overgrown manchild jackass who can't figure out what it takes to have a real relationship. The problem, however, is not him, and his desire for a "low-maintenance" woman who is hot, young, interested in him, and doesn't mind that he is callow and doesn't care very much about her. No, the problem is online dating, which has shown Jacob that he can have a steady stream of mediocre dates, some of whom will have sex with him.</i><p>I basically stopped reading at the ad hominem. An article that claims to be about "evidence" clearly is not if it needs to win reader approval by bashing the opposing subject. This was a theme in the Atlantic's comments section of the article in question, too.<p>We can't tell if Jacob is truly a "douche" or not. The last article was all about him but mainly focused on his dating life and not other circumstances of it. And he sounds like an average male professional...what seems offensive is that we're more privy to his desires and decisions and as they say, familiarity breeds contempt.<p>The OP also blasts the article for not including a single female voice. If we're trying to make an objective evaluation of the effect of online dating, then it does not matter if the article is single gender (either male or female). If it can be argued convincingly that one-half of a couple has much more incentive to leave, then that by definition is enough to have an effect on traditional relationships, no matter what the other gender thinks

<i>And more choices mean less satisfaction. For example, if you give people more chocolate bars to choose from, the story tells us, they think the one they choose tastes worse than a control group who had a smaller selection.</i><p>Huh. It's the opposite for me -- the more possibilities I can check out, the better I feel about my choice in the end. (Maybe that's one reason I didn't marry until age 42 :-) HN readers -- do you agree with this study, or not?

There's also no evidence cats can levitate.<p>I don't get it.

Wow. Alexis Madrigal is a massively negative person. I refuse to read anything with such tone.

I have to ask, is there anyone who honestly believed this?