In 2011, Mark Brooks, a consultant to online-dating companies, published the results of an industry survey titled “How Has Internet Dating Changed Society?” The survey responses, from 39 executives, produced the following conclusions:
“Internet dating has made people more disposable.”
“Internet dating may be partly responsible for a rise in the divorce rates.”
“Low quality, unhappy and unsatisfying marriages are being destroyed as people drift to Internet dating sites.”
“The market is hugely more efficient … People expect to—and this will be increasingly the case over time—access people anywhere, anytime, based on complex search requests … Such a feeling of access affects our pursuit of love … the whole world (versus, say, the city we live in) will, increasingly, feel like the market for our partner(s). Our pickiness will probably increase.”
“Above all, Internet dating has helped people of all ages realize that there’s no need to settle for a mediocre relationship.”
From "A Million First Dates
How online romance is threatening monogamy" in January/February 2013