14 DAY TRIAL // Recent reports have shown that, courtesy of the social networks that people have at their disposal, over 30% of marriages in the United States now begin online.
A team of researchers wished to see whether or not there are any differences between the divorce rates reported amongst couples who have met online and couples who have met face-to-face.
To get the answers they were looking for, the researchers surveyed a total of 19,000 people who got married at some point between 2005 and 2012.
Of these, 35% admitted to having met their future husband/wife online, be it a dating site or some other social networks such as Facebook and MySpace.
Chat rooms, online communities, virtual worlds, blogs and multi-player games were also listed as networks making it possible for people to meet their future spouses.
When comparing the divorce rates of the so-called online group to that of the offline group, it was discovered that the former were less likely to get a divorce, Nature reports.
More precisely, 94% of the online marriages lasted at least until 2012, when the survey was conducted, whereas 92% of the offline marriages did not end in a divorce by said year.
Although this 2% difference may not seem like much, the researchers say that it is statistically relevant.
The same source informs us that, according to information collected while carrying out this survey, couples who met online also experienced a tad more marital bliss than those who did not.
“Marriages that began on-line, when compared with those that began through traditional off-line venues, were slightly less likely to result in a marital break-up (separation or divorce) and were associated with slightly higher marital satisfaction among those respondents who remained married,” the researchers write in the abstract for their paper.
“These data suggest that the Internet may be altering the dynamics and outcomes of marriage itself,” they go on to say.