TECH CRUNCH - Feb 14 - Dating sites basically claim to predict the future, arguing that they have a crystal ball with a higher probability of users ending up in romantic utopia. It’s a funny assumption, because even the bleeding edge of social science, which arguably has access to a lot more accurate data than eHarmony, is really quite bad at predicting human behavior. Individuals, in general, are terrible at knowing what they want in a significant other. The browsing process can cause users to objectify potential partners, commoditizing them as options available in a marketplace of profiles. Social scientists see this as a perfect case of the ‘paradox of choice,’ when increasing options decreases satisfaction. Online communication shuts out the most informative pathway of communication by completely obscuring body and intonation. It’s very easy to lie online. Dating is entirely a numbers game, and the search method is largely irrelevant.
by Gregory Ferenstein
See full article at Tech Crunch
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Just waiting for the Fernando cut-and-paste comment ....
Posted by: Nick | Feb 15, 2013 at 08:32 AM
Seriously though, Gregory seems to be very one sided and not looking at the whole picture. Behavioural Algorithms (+ Loads of Data) CAN help us PREDICT who we will like and thus help us with providing the "best" people to date. Dating sites have to give you a better chances even if they are performing better than random (which they would be most of the times just by filtering).
Also see POF Marcus' excellent article that gives good opposition to the above: http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2012/02/12/eli-j-finkel-and-benjamin-r-karney-are-wrong-at-least-when-it-comes-to-pof/
Posted by: Nick | Feb 15, 2013 at 08:48 AM