Throughout America’s history, one aspect that has always stayed constant is the fact that Americans value relationships. The natural progression of relationships before the invention of the internet has been first getting to know one another, go on dates, go steady, get married, have intercourse, and then have children. Marriage is a common goal among Americans because of the many benefits marriages contain. Stephanie Coontz claims in her book Marriage, a History: from Obedience to Intimacy or How Love Conquered Marriage, the idea of a happy marriage and the benefits associated with it, “A husband and wife, we believe, owe their highest obligations and deepest loyalties to each other and the children they raise…They should express affection openly…and of course they should be sexually faithful to each other” (20). But now, relationships have a different progression and therefore the benefits from a marriage are not reaped. The invention of the internet not only creates a new way to meet potential mates, but also changes the way Americans view dating. Even though internet dating is advertised as a way to find one’s future spouse, many use online dating just for dating purposes, without the intent of finding a spouse. As stated in Dan Slater’s Love in the Time of Algorithms, “U.S Census data from 2010 showed that 39 percent of all Americans believe marriage is becoming obsolete” (121). The value of marriage is decreasing and marriage is slowly becoming irrelevant in American society. While online dating’s stated purpose is to make dating more efficient and help Americans toward their goal of marriage, the result of online dating has actually diminished marriage as a cherished American institution.

Americans have established a set of values in regards to marriage, such as saving sex for after marriage. In the 1920’s there were strict rules associated with dating and marriage. As stated in the novel From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America, “They [authorities] generally assumed that young women would not receive callers if not suitably chaperoned, that respectable and serious women students would not wander around all hours of the night with young men” (85). But as the method of dating changed, the values associated with relationships and marriage also transformed. Before, couples waited to have sex until marriage since the perception was that most Americans followed that value. Now, Americans do not feel a tie to this value and many are revolting it. Online dating has created a way to satisfy the needs of those only looking for a sexual relationship. Since online dating is a casual medium of dating (on-and-off-again relationships), the sexual relationships are casual and do not show any signs of commitment. The effects of this easy-access to sex are less committed relationships, less marriages, and more Americans breaking the traditional value. In Jennifer Egan’s New York Times article “Love in the Time of No Time,” she agrees that easy-access to sexual relationships may be the reason behind the lowering marriage rate, “Until the late 1960’s, marriage was the best guarantor of regular sex. Thereafter, it was being in a steady relationship. But online dating may be on its way to eliminating that particular incentive for commitment” (Egan). Sex may not be the main incentive to get married, but waiting proves that the relationship is not just based off of a physical attraction, that the base of the relationship is the emotional connection. Therefore, stronger relationships are based off of true emotional feelings of love and are progressing towards the goal of marriage. In fact, in Glenn T. Stranton’s “Premarital Sex and Greater Risk of Divorce”, he suggests there is a link between premarital sex and divorce in a 2003 study, “Sociologist Jay Teachman examined how both premarital sex and cohabitation impacts risk of divorce among women. He found that ‘[i]t remains the case, however, that women with more than one intimate relationship prior to marriage have an elevated risk of marital disruption’" (Stranton). Relationships begun by sex are less likely to contain commitment. Because of this lack of commitment, these relationships are disposable and do not result in marriage.

Americans’ view of divorce has changed drastically over the course of time. In the 1960’s, Americans used to think that marriage was a life-long commitment and divorce was taboo. The reason why relationships lasted longer in the 1960’s was because of the lack of access to a post-divorce dating pool. Americans felt that they had no alternative but to be married to their spouse since peers in their age group were all married, no one divorced. Also, social mores influenced a couple’s decision regarding divorce. A couple would stay married because they knew their friends and family would be disappointed in them. However, over time the value of commitment has decreased and Americans have decided to divorce. Times have changed and divorce has become more prominent and popular throughout American society. Figure 1 demonstrates the drastic change in the marriage and divorce rate. Even though these statistics specifically refer to women, this graph clearly shows that the marriage rate is decreasing while the divorce rate is increasing over time. In the 1960’s, marriage was a vital part of society and many Americans felt required to get married. But as time went on, Americans gained accessibility to relationships after divorce so there was no feeling of being obligated to work on a marriage. Online dating supplies the divorced with new relationships. Americans now can search for a relationship that makes them happy instead of working on a troubled marriage. Online dating can bring happiness after divorce, but also may cause struggling marriages to stop trying altogether. In Lauren Moraski’s article “Internet Marriages: More Likely to End in Divorce?” she points out the fact that those who divorce return to online dating. She uses the example of a man who met his first-wife on eHarmony.com and returned to eHarmony.com once he got divorced (Moraski). Online dating is a back-up plan for failed marriages; it secures those who want to get divorced with options, which may encourage unhappy marriages to separate. Statistics support this theory by marriage scholar and therapist Dr. William H. Doherty in his research paper “How common is the divorce and what are the reasons?”, “40%-50% of first marriages in America end in divorce and 60% of second marriages end in divorce as well” (Doherty). The fact that the divorce rate of second marriages is higher than the divorce rate of first marriages proves that after the first divorce, marriage becomes more disposable. With online dating there is a parachute to catch those ready to escape from an unhappy marriage and marriage is likely to have less meaning or value to those who marry for the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th time. Having online dating and divorce as a way to escape a failing commitment, marriage becomes less valuable and more disposable.

Online dating websites give easy-access to affairs in turn which leads to less commitment in marriages and more divorces. The internet has created a new way for individuals to cheat. The majority of online cheating happens on online dating websites. Most online dating sites advertise finding love and marriage. There are some dating sites that advertise affairs. Noel Biderman is the creator of the website Ashley Madison. The website targets married men who secretly want to have an affair. Ashley Madison’s slogan is “Life is Short. Have an Affair.” Figure 2, found on Ashley Madison’s website, shows the website has a mysterious, seductive, and secretive tone. The image of the girl with her finger over her lip portrays the “don’t ask, don’t tell” aspect to the site in which all affairs will be kept secret if the user decides to do so. The seductive tone distracts the audience from their values and marriage. Biderman explains his creation in the novel Love in the Time of Algorithms, “Anecdotally, the writer estimated that a third of men on dating sites were married…I thought hmmm, who’s more motivated than a married man to put down a credit card to get what he’s missing in his marriage?” (Slater 144). By marketing a website to married men to have an affair, of course there is a higher divorce rate associated with having an affair. Online affairs are the first step to having an affair in real life. Ashley Madison is promoting the weakening of marriages which proves that online dating can have the effect of decreasing the value of marriage. The site’s slogan furthers the point that marriage contains less value if infidelity is considered a casual subject. By creating a sense that infidelity is a causal, everyday event, the ties of commitment are weakened. In Helen Fisher’s Anatomy of Love: The Natural History of Monogamy and Divorce, she claims that affairs define marriage as an economic union in American courts, “our current laws concerning ‘no fault’ divorce have shifted the emphasis of marriage to an economic partnership; sexual transgressions rarely reach the courts or census takers” (86). When a marriage is defined as just an economic union (without considering it a cherished union), marriage has lost value. Marriage fades into the background of society as affairs become an important aspect in Americans’ lives. If affairs become more important than the marriage, the American identity shifts into an image where secrecy and infidelity overbears the importance of commitment. By extending the options for affairs, they become more attainable and commitment becomes less existent.

On eHarmony’s website, they claim that, “eHarmony’s patented Compatibility Matching System® allows eHarmony members to be matched with compatible persons with whom they are likely to enjoy a long-term relationship” (www.eHarmony.com). When one decides to join a dating website, such as eHarmony, he or she will be asked hundreds of personal questions. The results from these questionnaires calculate matches through the use of an algorithm. eHarmony is claiming that their algorithms more likely than not create matches that turn into long-lasting relationships. However, to this day there is no exact calculation to predict whether a couple will stay together or not. In an interview Dan Slater, author of Love in the Time of Algorithms, claims that there is limited science involved in calculating compatibility, “However, what online dating does seem to be improving at is the likelihood of two strangers getting along well on a first date. As far as the algorithms go…what my reporting and research showed was that psychological science has not provided that ability to predict long-term compatibility” (Jayson). While the algorithm used in data bases create what appears to be better first dates, it does not guarantee marriages. By extending the dating pool, there is more opportunity of finding someone who will be a good first date but there is no guarantee that one will find marriage. In addition, this extension of the dating pool may be the reason marriage has lost its value in American society. With more opportunity for more excellent dates, one may not feel the need to settle down. Many use online dating solely for the purpose of just to find one-time dates and are not looking for long-term commitment. These people, as stated in “Love in the Time of No Time”, are called serial daters. For an example, David Ezell, serial dater, had so many dates that he had to create an Excel spreadsheet in order to keep track of them (Egan). The problem with serial daters is that they are put into the same databases as those who are serious about finding marriage. With serial daters in the databases, marriages are not guaranteed when many online daters just want a relationship without commitment. Serial daters are examples of the value of marriage decreasing in American society. Since they have no desire to get married, they do not find value in the American tradition of marriage.

As technology advances, the way that Americans date also changes. Although online dating seems like an efficient way to date, it has made an overall negative impact on American society. Americans’ new approach towards sex, the ever-increasing divorce rate, the new casual attitude in regards to infidelity, and the aspect of dating more than one individual at a time proves that online dating has created a whole new set of problems in American society. The overall impact is online dating has decreased the value of a once sacred principle of American society, marriage. Now that this traditional value is changing, it makes one wonder what is in the future for Americans in the dating world. The only thing that is certain is the human heart will never be controlled by a computer’s algorithms.


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