Dating apps and sites are growing more popular, even among baby boomers. But can they really help you find someone special?
By Marisa Meltzer
December 29, 2016
You can do almost anything online these days: Check a bank balance, buy shoes, choose a mattress, order a cab. So when Roberta Caploe was ready to start dating again after a divorce, she didn’t ask her friends to fix her up or feel the need to frequent bars or health clubs. She signed up for JDate, an online dating site for Jewish singles. “All kinds of people are doing it,” says Caploe, 54, a publisher who lives in New York City. “It was—unbelievably—not a crazy experience.”
Online dating has certainly lost its lonely-hearts stigma. Just look at how many people seeking dates or mates are flocking to matchmaking sites and apps. According to a 2015 study by the Pew Research Center, 15 percent of American adults have used online dating sites (web-based platforms like Match.com) and/or dating apps (location-based smartphone apps like Tinder).
Participation by those 18 to 24 has almost tripled since 2013, and boomer enrollment has doubled. In fact, people over 50 are one of the fastest growing segments. “It’s a product of the growing normalcy of using social media apps,” says Moira Weigel, author of “Labor of Love: The Invention of Online Dating” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2016). “Our real-life and online identities are more and more interwoven.”
Because of this cultural shift, online dating sites now have unprecedented reach into our lives. They are gatekeepers to a massive population of potential partners; they control who we meet and how. Collectively, we spend huge sums of money on matchmaking, not to mention all the time and substantial emotional investment.
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