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Digital dating (and breaking up): Study

October 21, 2013 By Anne Leave a Comment

It’s one of the oldest forms of social media, predating social networking – a little more purposeful, if you will – and it’s gaining momentum. Well over a third (38%) of American adults who are single and actively looking for a partner have used dating sites or apps, and the percentage of US adults who ever have has tripled over the last five years, according to the Pew Internet Project. In 2008, 3% had; now, 11% of Internet users 18+ have (9% of all US adults). Two-thirds of those who have used dating sites have actually gone on a date with someone they met on one, and 23% have met a spouse or long-term partner on one, according to Pew. Breaking up via digital media isn’t just “kid stuff” either: 17% of “recent daters” aged 18+ have broken up via email, text, or online message, and 17% have been broken up with digitally. Here‘s an infographic Pew created about all this.

In Japan, digital match-making

Interestingly, Japan’s original social network site, Mixi, is now more about marriage than mere socializing online, according to the Japan Times. Apparently since it’s been passed up by social sites “Gree, Mobage, Twitter, Facebook and most recently Line,” Mixi has taken over Line’s marriage-matchmaking (the new Japanese buzzword for it is “machikon”) service Youbride and acquired a machikon company called Confianza. Machikon is apparently a blend of online search and face-to-face speed dating with a hint of “omiai” or traditional match-making flavor sprinkled in. So it may have a better chance in Japan, where online dating as we know it on this side of the Pacific has been frowned upon. “People of older generations think dating is only OK when it leads to marriage,” according to the Japan Times, “which is why marriage-matchmaking services may be seen as acceptable.” It also may help, the paper suggests, that Japan’s “low rates of marriage and birth are reaching crisis levels.”

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Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: digital dating, Gree, Japan, LINE, machikon, match making, Mixi, Mobage, omiai, online dating, Pew Internet Project, social networking, speed dating

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2016 TEDx Talk on
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IMPORTANT RESOURCES

Our (DIGITAL) PARENTING BASICS: Safety + Social
NAMLE, the National Association for Media Literacy Education
CASEL.org & the 5 core social-emotional competencies of SEL
Center for Democracy & Technology
Center for Innovative Public Health Research
Childnet International
Committee for Children
Congressional Internet Caucus Academy
ConnectSafely.org
Control Shift: a pivotal book for Internet safety
Crimes Against Children Research Center
Crisis Textline
Cyber Civil Rights Initiative's Revenge Porn Crisis Line
Cyberwise.org
danah boyd's blog and book about networked youth
Disconnected, Carrie James's book on digital ethics
FOSI.org's Good Digital Parenting
The research of Global Kids Online
The Good Project at Harvard's School of Education
If you watch nothing else: "Parenting in a Digital Age" TED Talk by Prof. Sonia Livingstone
The International Bullying Prevention Association
Let Grow Foundation
Making Caring Common
Raising Digital Natives, author Devorah Heitner's site
Renee Hobbs at the Media Education Lab
MediaSmarts.ca
The New Media Literacies
Report of the Aspen Task Force on Learning & the Internet and our guide to Creating Trusted Learning Environments
The Ruler Approach to social-emotional learning (Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence)
Sources of Strength
"Young & Online: Perspectives on life in a digital age" from young people in 26 countries (via UNICEF)
"Youth Safety on a Living Internet": 2010 report of the Online Safety & Technology Working Group (and my post about it)

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