What she discovered is that the algorithms powering online dating websites match users up based on profile similarities. While online dating may expose users to a larger number of people, the individuals users are matched up with are strictly dictated by similar interests and beliefs. Because of this algorithm, online dating pushes us toward a form of tribalism in which we choose to connect with those whose information speaks to our own identities and preferences.
The only way for a user to know these critical details is by interpreting the information given in a profile. Profiles provide the framework for social cues unique to online dating sites. While in unmediated communication social cues are communicated through things like words, tone of voice, clothing, facial expression, and body language, on dating sites they are communicated through answers to questionnaires, drop-down box-selected adjectives, biographies, pictures, and online activity tracking.
These unprecedented and sparse social cues frequently bring up the question of whether people will be inclined to lie about themselves online. Instead, she focused her energy on finding someone who might pique her interest. After making five fake male profiles to see what her competitors were like, Webb realized that she had forgotten a critical part of the process — would the men she was looking for like her back? According to Zizi Papacharissi, any individual who is aware of his multiple potentials online inevitably self-reflects and self-monitors his social presence.
It would be a slippery slope argument to say that the anonymity provided by the Internet causes individuals to lie about themselves, but it must be noted that this environment with sparse social cues allows the multiplicity and disembodiment of identities impossible in unmediated communication.
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Although Webb presents her case in a very methodical and entertaining way, she fails to address whether these hacks, namely the creation of a Super Profile, lead to deception or false identities. Perhaps a scholar prides himself in being intelligent. Similarly, a woman might think she is beautiful. However, to underscore this she might wear makeup to emphasize a particularly attractive feature such as her eyes or her high cheekbones.
Methodologically speaking, agents represent reciprocally classifying entities that must themselves be classified by the scientific observer. However, the previous considerations lead to the methodological postulate of observing interactions instead of individual practices, and of analyzing different traits instead of only one, and of taking the gender dimension of the mating process into account.
Questionnaire data commonly used in social sciences do not meet the requirement of quantitatively depicting reciprocity in human couple formation, as they are usually restricted to the interviewee. Dyadic surveys only cover existing couples and depend on retrospectively surveyed information regarding the first encounter. Aggregated marriage statistics, which are often used in research on couple formation, do not permit analysis of the first situation of encounter, especially regarding the alternative partners who would have been available at that time.
Although this information is essentially a by-product of the data organization of a private provider, it is an effective basis for theory-driven analysis of mating processes. By logging on and entering information e. The graphical user interface of a dating site is used to access the database, i. The particular dating site in question allows for a free search, in contrast to matchmaking sites where potential mates are proposed by an algorithm developed by the provider.
Contact information can be interpreted as practised homophily and heterophily. The relevance of particular resources for initiating and perpetuating an interaction can be assessed using the profile information of the users in question. The real time record of such events allows for the reconstruction of the underlying processual character. However, the online dating design creates the potential to meet the requirements of a refined Bourdieusian model of reciprocal classification processes in mating by means of objective results.
It allows for an identification of homogeneity and heterogeneity in dyads and for an interpretation according to lifestyle similarity, equivalency or further sorting mechanisms. This dependence structure of dyad members can be regarded not only as a statistical problem, but also as a source of substantial variation that needs to be modeled and interpreted. Analyzing the process of assortative mating basically means observing and modeling dyadic agent configurations, and hence the configurations of their characteristics. The task is not to model average agents with unidirectional contacting as a regression model would suggest , but to find out which typical agent configurations emerge and survive.
The identification of typically occurring dyads is effected by means of the manifest dis similarity in characteristics between the interacting users. For this purpose, each characteristic is used once for each dyad member and an optimum of categorical latent classes is searched.
The proposed multivariate classification of dyadic data is a way to reduce the complexity of interactions and to facilitate a structural analysis. In contrast to traditional cluster analysis techniques, the latent class classification predicts probabilities of class membership. One can statistically determine the optimal number of classes, and predict the probabilities of variable values within these classes.
The proposed dyadic extension of this basic principle consists of a classification of observed interactions of two individuals. Hence not classes of individual users are identified, but classes of dyads. The example is based on digital records of contact events between senders and receivers on a major German online dating site. The data used comes from a major German dating platform of the year 1st of January — 26th October It consists of profile information as well as information regarding contact events between users, which are not affected by a matching algorithm.
The data structure and its implications are discussed in Schmitz et al. If we were to observe this, neither the conservative homophily perspective nor the proposed equivalency mode would apply to the data. With regard to the theoretical discussion of a generalized reciprocal classification, this approach also enables to find systematic relations of difference. If the idea of generalized classification holds true, one would expect that dyadic classes also emerge where sender and receiver systematically differ in their characteristics.
The first contact information is significant for describing initial mating preferences, that is, the kind of partner a particular class of user is interested in.
Online Dating: URL vs. IRL
The lasting contacts, on the other hand, go some way toward illustrating those couple constellations given a chance of success by their participants, that is, the dyadic classes most likely to lead to a later date or a relationship. Theoretically, one can expect that a plethora of different dyadic configurations emerge in the very first moment of contact, but during the process of interaction, some dyadic configurations can be expected to become extinct.
Not all first contacts will be answered, and even if an answer follows the first contact, the third contact can be expected to systematically reduce the types of surviving dyadic configurations. This process goes on until the observations end, that is, the process shifts to other media such as telephone, e-mail or face-to-face meetings. See Figure 1 for a first assessment of this central consideration.
The black line represents a local polynomial smooth plot. The gray lines indicate the confidence intervals. Obviously, lifestyle works as a strong sorting mechanism, as the average correlation moves from a near zero correlation at the FOC to a correlation of. The graph also describes the process character: Up to the 25th interaction event, more culturally dissimilar dyads end the communication than similar dyads. Hence, there is still considerable variance between the cultural capital of two interacting users.
Dating Lines Free
Furthermore, the average inclination of correlations says nothing about the reciprocal dimension of the process, as it is sufficient if one actor of a dyad has a disposition for lifestyle similarity to explain the emerging pattern. Another possibility is that lifestyle similarity may be a by-product of other preferences. Finally, there is considerable leeway for heterophily, and the question is whether there are further mechanisms that generate couple configurations apart from lifestyle congruencies.
Simplified representation of dyadic interaction classes: This consideration again motivates the dissection of the aggregated interaction process into different empirical dyadic configurations using a dyadic classification technique. As discussed in the previous section, the classification was conducted by a latent class analysis, not of individual users, but of dyadic user relations.
For purposes of illustration, the presentation of the empirical results is restricted to the profile characteristics sex, age, education, and membership of one of three groups of lifestyle 9. The description of the emerging dyadic classes consists of first and lasting contacts see Table 1 and Table 2.
In order to qualify the lasting contacts as evidence of dyadic institutionalization, interactions shorter than four events have been excluded Figure 1 shows the first three events to be somewhat erratic in nature, stabilizing considerably after the fourth event. For reasons of clarity, the depiction is restricted to the four largest dyadic classes.
The average age of the senders is Senders have a high probability of naming Abitur or university as their educational qualification. The women they contact are very likely to be university graduates. The men of this interaction class mostly show a highbrow taste, but they contact women with highbrow and intermediate tastes with the same probability. The women in this interaction class especially contact men who have revealed a similar taste in their profile presentation according to lifestyle information.
In this class, it is striking that there is a high homophily regarding education and lifestyle.
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Women of this interaction class exclusively contact men who also have a high educational qualification and a highbrow lifestyle. On the whole, the majority of FOCs are initiated by men, which conforms to previous research results that characterize men as the more active sex see Schmitz et al.
It becomes clear that, in general, average probabilities occur much more rarely, and therefore a blurring in configurations of characteristics can be observed less often. The overall image is more homogenous than in the case of the initial contact. Both sexes are very likely to show an intermediate educational level and an intermediate lifestyle. The second dyadic class, with female senders who have an intermediate educational level and lifestyle, most often contacts men with the same educational level and lifestyle or, alternatively, men who are better educated and show a highbrow taste.
Although a causal interpretation is not possible, one can hypothesize that those women might employ their relative youth in order to realize a higher educational status and a highbrow taste in the counterpart. As this class contains agents who have exchanged several messages and therefore, one can assume, expressed their mutual appreciation, the men and women in question can be interpreted as equivalent regarding their symbolic market value on this partner market.
The third interaction class is constituted of men and women who have a high educational level and a highbrow lifestyle. The fourth class shows a similar pattern. It seems as if men have to display at least an average education to become a part of an equivalency relationship.
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This illustrates that even if lifestyle is taken into account, other traits especially age are also relevant in reciprocal classification processes. It becomes apparent that the significance of lifestyle varies according to age and sex. Older women, for example, seem to be more discriminating regarding the lifestyle and education of a potential partner, right from the outset.
This might be explained by a selection of those agents in the virtual dating market, as the conventional range of options for older, highly educated women cannot meet their expectations and, therefore, they use the Internet to compensate for this without having to lower their aspiration level.
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Younger women of the sample, by contrast, can be characterized by a preference for manifest similarities, and also by the fact that they remain in relatively stable interactional relations with more highly educated, highbrow men who are about five years older than themselves For example, less-educated men are rated down on the dating market, but less-educated women are not. Education and lifestyle seem to become cumulatively more important and more selective during the course of the interaction, as has been already shown in the descriptive section. The fact that older men in the LOC classes are much more similar to their female contacts can be mainly put down to the explicit preferences of the women involved, and less to male preferences.
Hence, an axiom of predominant lifestyle homophily would not be sufficient to describe this outcome.