Question: How has online dating changed relationships?

Has online dating fundamentally reshaped how people form relationships? This entry sets out the two positions on the question — that online dating has changed relationships, and that it has not.

Position 1 of 2

Read this position →

Yes, online dating has changed relationships

This position holds that online dating has changed relationships in kind, because meeting through a search rather than a shared circle alters who people meet, what they know of each other beforehand and how easily either can leave.

Meeting through a search rather than a circle changes who people meet
Choosing from a list makes partners comparable in a way they were not

Position 2 of 2

Read this position →

No, online dating has not changed relationships

This position holds that online dating changed how people are introduced rather than what follows: attraction, courtship, commitment and the reasons relationships last or end work as they did, and earlier channels drew the same claims.

The channel of introduction changed, not what people do with each other
Every new way of being introduced has attracted the same claim