Does Online Dating Work?

Feb. 12, 2011— -- Can you put a price on love? For online dating site Match.com, the answer is yes – about $50 million.

Just in time for Valentine's Day, Match acquired competitor OkCupid for that sizable cash sum. The acquisition indicates that the online dating industry is successful not only romantically, but also financially when it brings together business relationship seekers.

In fact, the Internet has become one of the most popular places for people to meet, according to the 2010 large-scale survey How Couples Meet and Stay Together.

"(Online dating) definitely works," said Reuben J. Thomas, an assistant professor of sociology at the City University of New York, who collaborated on the survey. "We estimate that 23 percent of the couples in the U.S. who met in the two years from 2007 to 2009 met online. More people meet online now than meet through school, work, church, bars, parties, et cetera."

These online avenues have opened up an eligible dating pool particularly for certain groups that might not have as many offline romantic opportunities.

"Online dating is used most by subpopulations that don't have a great number of potential partners available to meet in their everyday life," Thomas told Discovery News. "This can include people in their 30s and 40s, populations that are largely already coupled, or minority sexualities."

However, sites like Match, OkCupid and eHarmony aren't necessarily bringing more people together overall.

"The rate of partnering doesn't seem to be changing," Thomas said. "When we look at data on women's sexuality over the past few decades, they seem to be no more likely to be in a relationship now than before."

Rather, the statistics indicate that they've evolved into replacements for offline social dating outlets.

At the same time, some people remain distrustful of all those glowing online dating profiles promising the perfect guy or gal, despite nearly a quarter of American adult couples meeting online these days.

And in reality, what you see online probably isn't exactly what you'll get offline.