Marriages Made Online Outlast Others

Relationships that get started in the virtual world can end up being more real than those begun in the real world, according to research conducted at University of Chicago, where pyschologists studied the results of a marriage and satisfaction survey of 19,131 people. A U of Chicago news release reports that about 45 percent of the couples who responded to the survey met through an online dating site, and those people were likely to be older (30 to 39 is the largest age group represented); employed and have a higher income than couple who met at work, school, church, social gatherings, clubs and bars. The researchers found that the least successful marriages were started at bars, through blind dates and in online communities that function as virtual worlds, and the most successful were those that met on dating sites such as eHarmony, which yes, commissioned the study, and paid its main researcher. Read the study here. And now the numbers: Marriage breakups were reported in about 6 percent of the people who met online, compared with 7.6 percent of the people who met offline. Marriages for people who met online reported a mean score of 5.64 on a satisfaction survey, compared with a score of 5.48 for people who met offline.