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expanding the number of people that you
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can meet that um just creates the
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opportunity of meeting someone you might
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like who's not necessarily in your
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immediate social circle. But as we start
00:00:11
to increase the the pool size even
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further especially in the mobile world
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where we have um virtually endless
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number of potential candidates that we
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can meet that's going to to effectively
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ultimately uh reflect on the the
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likelihood of a match likelihood of you
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meeting someone who will also meet you
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and and like you back and as a result
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actually increasing the pool size can
00:00:36
have a negative impact on the on the
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match likelihood or the likelihood um
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finding or and and forming a positive
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relationship.
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>> Welcome to the Ripple Effect, the
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podcast that takes you on a journey
00:00:48
through the minds of Wharton faculty.
00:00:50
I'm your host, Dan Looney, and in each
00:00:52
episode, we'll be diving deep into the
00:00:54
inspiration behind the groundbreaking
00:00:56
research that Wharton professors have
00:00:58
conducted and exploring how their
00:01:00
findings resonate with the world today.
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In the digital age that we live in, even
00:01:07
dating has found its place with various
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websites for people to potentially
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connect in a way different than maybe
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historically we know that it has been
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the case. But how have those sites
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impacted things like marriages and the
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outcomes of those unions? Wharton
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professor Pinar Yilderum has been part
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of a group researching these components
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in a brand new study just released and
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she joins us right now. Penar, great to
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talk to you again. How are you?
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>> I'm great then. Thanks for having me.
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>> Just in general, these sites are
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obviously growing in usage. So
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understanding the types of impact that
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they are having, that's a very important
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component, a kind of a logical next step
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to understand just how much impact
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they're having.
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Yes, absolutely. The the impact of
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online dating apps, online dating
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platforms have been massive. If we look
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at the the technologies through which
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people meet. In fact, uh if you were to
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just go back about 20 years ago, online
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dating apps would be considered pretty
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much a stigma. Uh fast forward another
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10 11 years around 2011 online dating
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platforms have uh taken over as the the
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majority way through which people meet
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and couples are formed. In fact in
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United States today about 50% of couples
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are formed through online dating
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platforms. So it's important to
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understand the the effects of these
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platforms on especially how
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relationships are formed and how the
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relationships uh might come to an end.
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So take us through the research and how
00:02:41
you kind of went about it.
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>> So yeah, I mean we got curious naturally
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about the effects of these platforms on
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what kind of relationships are formed,
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what uh its impacts these the platforms
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impacts are on marriage and divorce
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rates as well as some health outcomes.
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We collected data from majority of the
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online dating platforms going back to
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about uh 2002.
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again focusing first on the the
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platforms that might have primarily
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operated through desktop and then later
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on focusing on the the mobile uh
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platforms, mobile apps.
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>> How important is it to make that
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differentiation between what we saw
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maybe two decades ago when we were
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basically living on our computers but it
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was a desktop to now where we are where
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the digital our smartphones uh are so
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important to us in our lives. It's
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important because we have uh seen
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significant changes as we went from the
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desktop platforms to to mobile phones
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where we have a very limited small
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screen. And I think the important
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question one needs to ask is especially
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compared to the offline methods of
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dating. How did these new technologies
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change the the way people interact with
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each other? And how does the desktop
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version of desktop technology of meeting
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others differ from the the mobile uh
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technology of of meeting romantic
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partners? And uh from an economic
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perspective, we have decided we have
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identified at least three ways through
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which we can think of these technologies
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to differ from the offline world. Of
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course, one is the the sort of the size
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of the pool of individuals that you
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might be able to reach out to through
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these platforms relative to the offline
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world. If you're only constrained in
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terms of meeting others um in in real
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world, that's going to reduce the number
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of people that you could interact with
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and the types of people that you can
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interact. You typically will be uh or
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you'll be more much more likely to meet
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individuals who might be nearby you and
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who might be much more similar to you.
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Whereas of course with the desktop
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platforms first and later on with the
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mobile apps we have dramatically
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expanded the pool size of whom we can
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meet and the number of people we can
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meet and and that has both positive and
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and negative effects. On the one hand of
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course expanding the number of people
00:04:59
that you can meet that um just creates
00:05:02
the opportunity of meeting someone you
00:05:04
might like who's not necessarily in your
00:05:06
immediate social circle. But as we start
00:05:09
to increase the the pool size even
00:05:12
further especially in the mobile world
00:05:14
where we have um virtually endless
00:05:16
number of potential candidates that we
00:05:18
can meet that's going to to effectively
00:05:21
ultimately uh reflect on the the
00:05:24
likelihood of a match likelihood of you
00:05:26
meeting someone who will also meet you
00:05:29
and and invite you back. And as a
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result, actually increasing the pool
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size can have a negative impact on the
00:05:36
on the match likelihood or the
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likelihood of um binding or and and
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forming a a positive relationship. Um it
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second factor is of course the the the
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noise or the uh potential information
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that you can identify about the
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individuals that you are meeting with.
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Even though we could meet endless number
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of people, the amount of information,
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the amount of true information that we
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can gather about these individuals is
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going to be fairly limited, especially
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because um in the the mobile world where
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we have very limited short profiles, the
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number of information pieces, the the
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amount of information that you can
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consume about a single individual is
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quite limited. So as we went from the
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the offline world into a desktop world,
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even though we could gather potentially
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more information about individuals in a
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short period of time, as we moved back
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to the mobile world, that information
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has significantly shrunk. So now we're
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looking at a potentially noisier world
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in terms of gathering information about
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people. At the same time a third factor
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this is how much time or how much effort
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we have to put into when it comes to
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trying to to g information about
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individuals or trying to source the
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profiles in real life if you wanted to
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meet I don't know 10 20 people in a
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single day that would be a very costly
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thing to do going meeting exerting
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effort to to get to learn about these
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individuals in uh the desktop world as
00:07:03
well as the mobile world this has
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dramatically gone down the cost and
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effort
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uh in in fact in mobile world of course
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the test simply became a finger act just
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a simple swipe of trying to to interact
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and and learn about robots. So those
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factors um play a role when it comes to
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shaping relationships and that's one of
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the the things that we try to to address
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in our
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>> and so it's important obviously when
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you're trying to meet somebody is you
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want to get to know them as well as you
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can and part of getting to know them are
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kind of their behaviors and I'm
00:07:36
wondering if if people's behaviors when
00:07:39
you go from the desktop to the mobile
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have kind of advanced or adjusted as
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we've moved through the years as well.
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So people's behaviors might have changed
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and it might have changed in response to
00:07:50
a number of different factors. Of course
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the design of these these uh platforms
00:07:55
have changed as we moved from desktop to
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mobile. In the desktop era we have seen
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uh much uh much more information. When
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you looked at the profiles, typically
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you had uh many different pieces of
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information where people could write
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long essays about themselves, go into
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details about their personality, what
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they are looking for, and that created a
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perhaps um a a more informationful
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environment
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that might have changed how you interact
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with someone. If you can read and if you
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can learn a lot about somebody, of
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course, you might be much more likely to
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go into a maybe an interaction because
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you feel more comfortable in the mobile
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world. Now, our our attention was simply
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complying to this small screen that we
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have and whatever we could consume in
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that small screen um was practically the
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information that these apps demanded
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from us. they did not uh give the
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opportunity to to consumers or they did
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not necessarily ask consumers to fill in
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these very long profiles about
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themselves. They made it easier for
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people to to easily look at profiles but
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at the same time that reduce the amount
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of information that one can present
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about about themselves. So as a result
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of that you will anti you will expect
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it's normal to anticipate that the
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interactions between individuals are are
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naturally going to change and in the
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mobile world it might have
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disproportionately focused on some of
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the small pieces of information that
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became a little more salient maybe for
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instance the the image of the person or
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the educational background of the
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individual or the the job profile of the
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individual as these are commonly the
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type of information that are made a
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little more salient compared compared to
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some of the other therapists. I
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>> Is there a difference then in the
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behaviors when you're talking about who
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you're connected with, the the sex of
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the person you're connecting with, male
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versus female?
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>> Um, in terms of the the behaviors or the
00:09:49
interactions, the outcomes that we can
00:09:51
observe, we do not have data on the the
00:09:55
the gender of the individuals. What we
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know is that when we look at just purely
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usage, we are able to observe that there
00:10:02
are disproportionately more males on
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dating platforms compared to to females
00:10:07
almost an 80 20% ratio. And this is
00:10:10
something that again when you look at at
00:10:12
least the anecdotal uh studies and and
00:10:16
evidence you will typically see uh these
00:10:18
these statistics um also confirm. But
00:10:22
what we have seen at least uh or what
00:10:24
one of the outcomes that we looked at
00:10:25
was how relationship formation or the
00:10:30
type of couples that are formed uh look
00:10:33
like as online dating or dating
00:10:35
platforms become more prevalent. So we
00:10:38
looked at for instance um the the idea
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of uh a a female and a male again in a
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heterosexual couple how the
00:10:47
characteristics of the the husband and
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how the character characteristics of the
00:10:51
wife look like um in in regions where
00:10:54
online dating was much more prevalent.
00:10:56
And one of the things that we have seen
00:10:58
was that um despite the fact that over
00:11:02
many many decades we have seen
00:11:04
increasing examples increasing evidence
00:11:07
of sorting in uh marriage formation.
00:11:10
What do I mean by that? We have seen
00:11:12
over the years um more and more
00:11:15
marriages where the wife and the husband
00:11:18
would have similar educational profiles.
00:11:20
>> They would have also more similar uh
00:11:24
employment profiles. for instance, more
00:11:26
and more couples would be both employed.
00:11:29
We've seen actually that with online
00:11:31
dating, the this trend is not
00:11:33
necessarily followed or a a defying
00:11:36
trend emerges uh from the couples that
00:11:39
seem to be formed more likely to coming
00:11:42
from the online dating environment. What
00:11:44
do I mean by that? We have seen um
00:11:46
lesser sorting in education where women
00:11:49
seem to now be more comfortable marrying
00:11:52
uh individuals who have lesser education
00:11:55
that lower uh maybe a degree lower and
00:11:59
we have seen also uh more and more
00:12:01
formation of couples where both parties
00:12:04
are not necessarily in labor force. We
00:12:07
do see fewer uh dual earner couples
00:12:10
coming out of the the dating profile. So
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that reflects a degree of asymmetry
00:12:14
between the experiences of men and
00:12:17
women. Um even though we do not observe
00:12:19
exactly how these differences are
00:12:21
reflected when individuals are engaging
00:12:24
uh with with others on the dating
00:12:26
platform.
00:12:26
>> So having done this research now is
00:12:29
there kind of a next logical step that
00:12:32
you would like to take this research
00:12:34
going down the road?
00:12:35
>> So there are many questions that we
00:12:37
still don't have answers to. We have
00:12:39
answers to some questions about
00:12:40
marriage. We have answers to some
00:12:42
questions about the the sort of
00:12:44
potential health outcomes. For instance,
00:12:46
we observe that um especially in the
00:12:48
mobile era. Marriages are are declining
00:12:51
regions where online dating has become
00:12:54
more prevalent and partially as a result
00:12:56
of the declining marriages. We also know
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that we've also seen that divorces are
00:13:01
declining. Um that was not necessarily
00:13:03
the case when we looked at online dating
00:13:05
in the desktop era. in the online in the
00:13:07
early days of online dating seems like
00:13:10
there are disproportionately more older
00:13:12
users who seem to be driving higher
00:13:14
levels of divorce. So what we would like
00:13:17
to understand in some sense is this for
00:13:19
instance uh decomposing this effect of
00:13:22
declining marriages. What does that
00:13:24
really mean? Do they mean um do we see
00:13:26
potentially a delay in the marriage? Do
00:13:28
we see uh couples becoming maybe more uh
00:13:33
skeptical of of getting into a marriage
00:13:35
or or forming relationships that may not
00:13:37
necessarily result in a marriage and
00:13:40
then also the implications of this. Just
00:13:43
because marriages are declining that
00:13:44
doesn't mean people are are less happy
00:13:46
or they are not necessarily feeling good
00:13:49
about their relationship outcomes. We
00:13:52
don't unfortunately have right now a
00:13:53
data to be able to link the the marriage
00:13:56
and divorce outcomes to to people's
00:13:58
well-being and how they feel about
00:14:00
themselves, how they feel about their uh
00:14:02
relationship status. We would love to be
00:14:04
able to to also um have additional
00:14:08
evidence, additional information,
00:14:10
additional findings related to how uh
00:14:13
the marriage and divorce outcomes are
00:14:15
reflecting on people's status.
00:14:16
>> Great PR, great to talk to you. Thanks
00:14:18
very much. All the best.
00:14:20
>> Thank you. Thank you as well.
00:14:22
>> You You got it. Pinar Yodum who is a
00:14:24
professor here at the Wharton School.
00:14:27
>> Thank you for listening to the ripple
00:14:28
effect. We hope you found this episode
00:14:30
informative and engaging. Don't forget
00:14:32
to subscribe and leave us a review so
00:14:34
that we can continue to bring you the
00:14:36
best insight from the Warden School.
