Cyber-Dating and Divorce

Over the past ten years there has been an increasing number of people who met their significant other through the Internet. At first, people were meeting each other in chat rooms and a few were brave enough to meet their chat buddy face to face. For the past couple of years, there are numerous Internet dating sites that are popping up all over the place that insist they are able to weed out people who are incompatible before either party puts any effort into a real relationship. More and more people are willing to admit that they subscribe to these dating websites, and there are more than a few people, including some people from my own group of friends and family, who proudly state that they met their ideal mate through the Internet. Some of these cyber-relationships end up with a trip down the aisle. The question then becomes, are people who met over the Internet more or less likely to stay married? With the boom of Internet dating still in its infancy, I'm not sure that any real research is out there to determine whether the 50% divorce rate here in America will decrease as the number of people who meet online increases. No matter what, relationships are work, and even though a computer screening process may say that you are compatible with a person, until you are actually living together under the same real house rather than a virtual one, there is no telling whether those compatibility tests are a good indicator of a successful marriage.

If you would like to read the ABC article that this blog is based upon, see: http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/story?section=sci_tech&id=5248204