ON POINT – Jan 9 - Is online dating making it too easy to move on? Dan Slater raised this question in his article in The Atlantic – A Million First Dates. Tom Ashbrook from NPR Radio invited Mark Brooks, Eli Finkel and Amanda Hess (Slate Magazine) to discuss this topic in his radio show On Point. Listen to the radio interview
Tom: Dan Slater’s conclusion is there are so many fish in the digital sea that people aren’t going to necessarily make commitments anymore and settle down. What did you think?
Mark: People like choice and they are paralyzed by choice. On one hand, it’s very empowering and very attractive to jump online and go find another one. But on the other hand, it is having an effect on commitment.
Eli: I disagree with the premise that good relationships are frequently under new pressure because of the existence of all these alternatives. Because the vast majority of people who are in good committed relationships are happy to be there.
Mark: Getting someone who is compatible and keeping them are 2 different things. So yes you broke up and maybe you’ll break up again, but what have you learned from that? How can this industry help him do better next time?
I think there is an opportunity there and we can see that reflected in the number of couple’s apps that are springing up.
Eli: Online dating is marvelous because it decreases the likelihood that you will be a single person wishing you weren’t single and having no options. One thing that Dan Slater’s article really does is illustrate you now have a whole bunch of available options out there and relative to 20 years ago it is a chiasmic leap forward in terms of giving people access to face to face meetings with potential partners.