The impact online dating has on us

Positive effects of dating online

It’s a widely known fact that the Internet has already become a strong presence in the love lives of us – somewhere in-between the online dating websites and various social media.

According to a new study by the Pew Research Center, approximately twenty-seven per cent of adults who are currently in a long-term commitment confess that it was the Internet that has impacted their relationships and in a positive way mostly.

Moreover, Pew’s new research also shows that nearly twenty-one per cent of all the committed adult people felt closer to each other due to the exchanges they had on the web. And about nine per cent even claimed that they used the Internet dating websites at least once in order to resolve some conflicts and arguments when they faced complications and troubles doing that in real life.

Some cons to be considered

However, all the web dating resources we access can bring additional (and totally unnecessary) tension into the relationships between people as well – about eight per cent of couples in relationships had to admit they had been in arguments about the amounts of time spent online by their partner. Also, about one in four couples said they have felt that their partner was distracted by their smartphone while spending time together. But strange as it may be, the devices causing fights in the relationships seem to have brought a lot of young couples closer together. Forty-one per cent of younger couples actually said they felt much closer to their significant other thanks to online or text conversations.

The study also helped to find out that a lot of couples actually even share their online lives. In fact, nearly twenty-seven per cent of couples do have a joint e-mail address. Slightly more than sixty per cent of people go further – they share passwords to social media sites.

What else?

It seems that younger couples these days are more likely to be influenced by the Internet habits of their partner. Young people in the age of between 18 and 29 are in the majority of those people who reported that the web and mobile communication devices have had a strong impact on their relationships, (about twenty-one per cent of people admitted it has had a major impact).

And, naturally, younger couples are also easily distracted by their devices – forty-two per cent of the people between 18 and 29 years old claimed that they often felt their partner totally ignored them in order to play with the smartphone or tablet.