Five percent of the newly married couples in United States are customers of eHaromny.com, a match-making website. A lot of people are resorting to online match making services. The basic principle used by one of the famous dating websites eHarmony is that the more alike you and your partner are, the longer your marriage will last. Are you serious? ! Where did the principles of basics physics vanish away which talked about the attraction between the opposites?

1. THE YOUNG INDIA FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM
Research proposal on ‘Understanding the dating land scape in United States’
Submitted as a part of Anthropology course taught by Dr.Mekhala Krishnamurthy
Submitted by
Mahesh Jakhotia
YIF11M_25

2. Introduction
Five percent of the newly married couples in United States are customers of eHaromny.com,
a match-making website. [1] A lot of people are resorting to online match making services.
The basic principle used by one of the famous dating websites eHarmony is that the more
alike you and your partner are, the longer your marriage will last.[2] Are you serious? ! Where
did the principles of basics physics vanish away which talked about the attraction between the
opposites?
The dating websites decide your partner on the basis of personality questions like – “Do you
have a messy room?” or “Do you get angry easily?”[3] And then match you to partners who
answered in the same way. A few of the career websites ask questions such as– “Do you like
helping others?” and if the answer is yes they push them in a career related to philanthropy.
Research Question My aim here is to understand what makes people resort to online
services (meeting strangers), even though there has been a tremendous increase in
communication technologies and face to face interaction due to the increase in
population.
The prospect that millions of singles are making life-changing decisions based on
compatibility tests that are not scientifically sound is a sobering one. Indeed, medical patients
would not take a drug that has not been approved by the FDA (unless they are desperate) and
likewise people looking for relationships should not so willingly trust online psychological
tests and matching systems that have not been independently proven to meet professional
testing standards.
[1]- *2009 U.S. survey conducted for eHarmony by Harris Interactive®
[2] - http://www.welcometodating.com/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=64
[3] - http://www.welcometodating.com/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=64
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3. Literature review
The match-making and dating websites use algorithms developed by world famous
Anthropologists and Clinical Psychologists to determine the right partner for a person from
millions of candidates.
Perfectmatch.com, is using an algorithm designed by Pepper Schwartz, a sociologist at the
University of Washington at Seattle. eHarmony’s algorithm was developed by Galen
Buckwalter, a psychologist from USC. Chemistry.com, using an algorithm created by Helen
E. Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers who has studied the neural chemistry of people in
love.[1] Anthropologist Helen E. Fisher is also known for her famous TED.talk[2]
eHarmony is based on the notion that romantic compatibility equates with greater similarity
than dissimilarity between two individuals. But other research underscores the notion of
complementarity (e.g., Houts, Huston,& Robins, 1996), which entails that couples achieve
compatibility by harmonizing, or even exploiting, differences in partners' interpersonal styles
and life skills.
Susan E. Frohlick did an ethnography to understand whether online dating is better than
offline dating, and the results show that people were frustrated as the internet in many ways is
the same old bar scene.[3]
Frohlick says that “One of the most striking findings so far is that there’s a huge contradiction
between what women say about the popularity of online dating sites on the one hand and, on
the other hand, their own sense of almost shame, and certainly secrecy about it. They talk
about how it’s for losers.”[3]
[1]-
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/science/29tier.html
[2] -
http://sciencestage.com/v/887/helen-fisher-the-science-of-love-and-the-future-of-women.html
[3]-
http://www.antropologi.info/blog/anthropology/2008/anthropological_research_online_dating_a
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4. Methodology of the ethnography
In order to choose a location to conduct ethnography, I would have to find out the place
where online dating is prevalent. For this I would meet the stakeholders of various dating
websites to find out the communities and cities from where most of the company consumers
are present.
It would be a very difficult task to find a minimum number of people in the targeted
communities, but assuming that twenty percent of the US marriages happen because of these
dating websites, there would be a lot of areas where the density of these users is extremely
high. New York would be one of the places where this is extremely prevalent. But since New
York being the Wall Street city might present some problems due to the Wall Street nature
prevalent in the city. We would focus on a city like California, which is free from these
prevalent cultures. Once the locations have been chosen, I would be doing ethnographic
studies by doing qualitative interviews to find out what kind of methods do people resort to
meet their partners. This would involve meeting at least hundred participants across the age
of 20-40 to know the various ways they use to find a partner. This would involve researching
both unmarried people and couples who have been in marriage for more than five years. This
process will make us understand the advantages & disadvantages faced while going through a
conventional process route. Through this process we might be able to find out what makes
people go through the online dating routes instead of the conventional ways?
Once the research is done, I would be studying the structure of companies and their motive
behind starting these online dating websites. This is very important aspect to understand
whether the company’s vision is same as that of what people are expecting.
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5. Once the first research is done, a controlled group study would be done to find out the
success of people who went through these online platforms and the ones who went through
the other methods for marriage. This would show whether the algorithms used by these
match-making websites is scientifically strong or not.
Beneficiaries of the study
a) The online dating companies These companies need to know whether their current
methodologies are successful or not. And also what kind of changes do they have to make
based on the needs of people.
b) Academicians The white paper prepared at the end of the thesis will be a good literature
for the academicians and US and other countries. Research scholars could understand how
the dating websites work culturally across the world.
c) People Many people in US have joined these match-making websites as they had felt that
the technology and science used by these companies would find them the best partner. There
is no study which explains whether going through these websites actually result in better
partners? This study would help the people determine the strength of these websites as the
research also entails analyzing the differences between the couples which have been formed
by these websites and couples formed through other routes.
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6. Timeline of Research
WORK TIME
Meeting the companies and finding out the locations for 3 months
ethnographic research. (Top 5 companies would be visited)
Qualitative survey of participants 1 year
Understanding the structure of online dating websites and their 6 months
visions. (2 organizations would be analyzed)
Controlled group study to understand the success of the partners 1 year
who went through the online route and the ones who went through
Assimilation of research work and formation of thesis 3 months
the conventional route
TOTAL TIME 3 YEARS
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