Does online dating make relationships more successful?

A new study in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking showed that for marital relationships, meeting in online dating was only linked to less relationship success among people with no “relationship talk on social media” (RToSM), but not among those who had RToSM. For non-marital relationships, the study showed a positive link between meeting in online dating and relationship success among those who had RToSM.

In the current study, Junwen Hu, from Michigan State University, and co-authors, replicated and expanded a previous study, which also found that meeting one’s partner online (versus offline) was somewhat related to experiencing less relationship success among people in a marital relationship. This difference was not observed among people in a non-marital romantic relationship.

“Because self-disclosure on social media can help individuals garner network support for their relationship it is plausible that RToSM can buffer the negative effect of online dating on relationship success in marital relationships,” stated the investigators.

“This study serves to demonstrate the nuanced impacts of online dating on relationship success, highlighting the dynamics of digital relationships and the role of social media,” stated Editor-in-Chief Brenda K. Wiederhold, Ph.D., MBA, BCB, BCN, Interactive Media Institute, San Diego, California and Virtual Reality Medical Center, La Jolla, California.