Meeting a significant other online has replaced meeting through friends. What’s the main takeaway from your research on online dating? Stanford News Service interviewed Rosenfeld about his research.
Rosenfeld has studied mating and dating as well as the internet’s effect on society for two decades. Sonia Hausen, a graduate student in sociology, was a co-author of the paper and contributed to the research. Rosenfeld, a lead author on the research and a professor of sociology in the School of Humanities and Sciences, drew on a nationally representative 2017 survey of American adults and found that about 39 percent of heterosexual couples reported meeting their partner online, compared to 22 percent in 2009.
Since 1940, traditional ways of meeting partners – through family, in church and in the neighborhood – have all been in decline, Rosenfeld said. In a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Rosenfeld found that heterosexual couples are more likely to meet a romantic partner online than through personal contacts and connections. Online dating has become the most common way for Americans to find romantic partners.