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• The Virtues and Downsides of Online Dating

30% of U.S. adults say they have used a dating site or app. A majority of online daters say their overall experience was positive, but many users – particularly younger women – report being harassed or sent explicit messages on these platforms

Table of contents.

• 1. Americans’ personal experiences with online dating
• 2. Users of online dating platforms experience both positive – and negative – aspects of courtship on the web
• 3. Americans’ opinions about the online dating environment
• Acknowledgments
• Methodology

How we did this

Pew Research Center has long studied the changing nature of romantic relationships and the role of digital technology in how people meet potential partners and navigate web-based dating platforms. This particular report focuses on the patterns, experiences and attitudes related to online dating in America. These findings are based on a survey conducted Oct. 16 to 28, 2019, among 4,860 U.S. adults. This includes those who took part as members of Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses, as well as respondents from the Ipsos KnowledgePanel who indicated that they identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB). The margin of sampling error for the full sample is plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.

Recruiting ATP panelists by phone or mail ensures that nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. This gives us confidence that any sample can represent the whole U.S. adult population (see our Methods 101 explainer on random sampling). To further ensure that each ATP survey reflects a balanced cross-section of the nation, the data are weighted to match the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories.

For more, see the report’s methodology about the project. You can also find the questions asked, and the answers the public provided in this topline .

From personal ads that began appearing in publications around the 1700s to videocassette dating services that sprang up decades ago, the platforms people use to seek out romantic partners have evolved throughout history. This evolution has continued with the rise of online dating sites and mobile apps.

Today, three-in-ten U.S. adults say they have ever used an online dating site or app – including 11% who have done so in the past year, according to a new Pew Research Center survey conducted Oct. 16 to 28, 2019. For some Americans, these platforms have been instrumental in forging meaningful connections: 12% say they have married or been in a committed relationship with someone they first met through a dating site or app. All in all, about a quarter of Americans (23%) say they have ever gone on a date with someone they first met through a dating site or app.

Previous Pew Research Center studies about online dating indicate that the share of Americans who have used these platforms – as well as the share who have found a spouse or partner through them – has risen over time. In 2013, 11% of U.S. adults said they had ever used a dating site or app, while just 3% reported that they had entered into a long-term relationship or marriage with someone they first met through online dating. It is important to note that there are some changes in question wording between the Center’s 2013 and 2019 surveys, as well as differences in how these surveys were fielded. 1 Even so, it is clear that websites and mobile apps are playing a larger role in the dating environment than in previous years. 2

The current survey finds that online dating is especially popular among certain groups – particularly younger adults and those who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB). Roughly half or more of 18- to 29-year-olds (48%) and LGB adults (55%) say they have ever used a dating site or app, while about 20% in each group say they have married or been in a committed relationship with someone they first met through these platforms. Americans who have used online dating offer a mixed look at their time on these platforms.

On a broad level, online dating users are more likely to describe their overall experience using these platforms in positive rather than negative terms. Additionally, majorities of online daters say it was at least somewhat easy for them to find others that they found physically attractive, shared common interests with, or who seemed like someone they would want to meet in person. But users also share some of the downsides to online dating. Roughly seven-in-ten online daters believe it is very common for those who use these platforms to lie to try to appear more desirable. And by a wide margin, Americans who have used a dating site or app in the past year say the experience left them feeling more frustrated (45%) than hopeful (28%).

Other incidents highlight how dating sites or apps can become a venue for bothersome or harassing behavior – especially for women under the age of 35. For example, 60% of female users ages 18 to 34 say someone on a dating site or app continued to contact them after they said they were not interested, while a similar share (57%) report being sent a sexually explicit message or image they didn’t ask for.

Online dating has not only disrupted more traditional ways of meeting romantic partners, its rise also comes at a time when norms and behaviors around marriage and cohabitation also are changing as more people delay marriage or choose to remain single.

These shifting realities have sparked a broader debate about the impact of online dating on romantic relationships in America. On one side, some highlight the ease and efficiency of using these platforms to search for dates, as well as the sites’ ability to expand users’ dating options beyond their traditional social circles. Others offer a less flattering narrative about online dating – ranging from concerns about scams or harassment to the belief that these platforms facilitate superficial relationships rather than meaningful ones. This survey finds that the public is somewhat ambivalent about the overall impact of online dating. Half of Americans believe dating sites and apps have had neither a positive nor negative effect on dating and relationships, while smaller shares think its effect has either been mostly positive (22%) or mostly negative (26%).

Terminology

Throughout this report, “online dating users” and “online daters” are used interchangeably to refer to the 30% of respondents in this survey who answered yes to the following question: “Have you ever used an online dating site or dating app?”

These findings come from a nationally representative survey of 4,860 U.S. adults conducted online Oct. 16 to 28, 2019, using Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel. The following are among the major findings.

Younger adults – as well as those who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual – are especially likely to use online dating sites or apps

Some 30% of Americans say they have ever used an online dating site or app. Out of those who have used these platforms, 18% say they are currently using them, while an additional 17% say they are not currently doing so but have used them in the past year.

Experience with online dating varies substantially by age. While 48% of 18- to 29-year-olds say they have ever used a dating site or app, that share is 38% among 30- to 49-year-olds, and it is even smaller among those ages 50 and older. Still, online dating is not completely foreign to those in their 50s or early 60s: 19% of adults ages 50 to 64 say they have used a dating site or app.

Beyond age, there also are striking differences by sexual orientation. 3 LGB adults are about twice as likely as straight adults to say they have used a dating site or app (55% vs. 28%). 4 And in a pattern consistent with previous Pew Research Center surveys , college graduates and those with some college experience are more likely than those with a high school education or less to say they’ve ever online dated.

There are only modest differences between men and women in their use of dating sites or apps, while white, black or Hispanic adults all are equally likely to say they have ever used these platforms.

At the same time, a small share of U.S. adults report that they found a significant other through online dating platforms. Some 12% of adults say they have married or entered into a committed relationship with someone they first met through a dating site or app. This too follows a pattern similar to that seen in overall use, with adults under the age of 50, those who are LGB or who have higher levels of educational attainment more likely to report finding a spouse or committed partner through these platforms.

A majority of online daters say they found it at least somewhat easy to come across others on dating sites or apps that they were physically attracted to or shared their interests

Online dating users are more likely to describe their overall experience with using dating sites or apps in positive, rather than negative, terms. Some 57% of Americans who have ever used a dating site or app say their own personal experiences with these platforms have been very or somewhat positive. Still, about four-in-ten online daters (42%) describe their personal experience with dating sites or apps as at least somewhat negative.

For the most part, different demographic groups tend to view their online dating experiences similarly. But there are some notable exceptions. College-educated online daters, for example, are far more likely than those with a high school diploma or less to say that their own personal experience with dating sites or apps is very or somewhat positive (63% vs. 47%).

At the same time, 71% of online daters report that it was at least somewhat easy to find people on dating sites or apps that they found physically attractive, while about two-thirds say it was easy to find people who shared their hobbies or interests or seemed like someone they would want to meet in person.

While majorities across various demographic groups are more likely to describe their searches as easy, rather than difficult, there are some differences by gender. Among online daters, women are more likely than men to say it was at least somewhat difficult to find people they were physically attracted to (36% vs. 21%), while men were more likely than women to express that it was difficult to find others who shared their hobbies and interests (41% vs. 30%).

Men who have online dated in the past five years are more likely than women to feel as if they did not get enough messages from other users

When asked if they received too many, not enough or just about the right amount of messages on dating sites or apps, 43% of Americans who online dated in the past five years say they did not receive enough messages, while 17% say they received too many messages. Another 40% think the amount of messages they received was just about right.

There are substantial gender differences in the amount of attention online daters say they received on dating sites or apps. Men who have online dated in the past five years are far more likely than women to feel as if they did not get enough messages (57% vs. 24%). On the other hand, women who have online dated in this time period are five times as likely as men to think they were sent too many messages (30% vs. 6%).

The survey also asked online daters about their experiences with getting messages from people they were interested in. In a similar pattern, these users are more likely to report receiving too few rather than too many of these messages (54% vs. 13%). And while gender differences remain, they are far less pronounced. For example, 61% of men who have online dated in the past five years say they did not receive enough messages from people they were interested in, compared with 44% of women who say this.

Roughly seven-in-ten online daters think people lying to appear more desirable is a very common occurrence on online dating platforms

Online daters widely believe that dishonesty is a pervasive issue on these platforms. A clear majority of online daters (71%) say it is very common for people on these platforms to lie about themselves to appear more desirable, while another 25% think it is somewhat common. Only 3% of online daters think this is not a common occurrence on dating platforms.

Smaller, but still substantial shares, of online daters believe people setting up fake accounts in order to scam others (50%) or people receiving sexually explicit messages or images they did not ask for (48%) are very common on dating sites and apps. By contrast, online daters are less likely to think harassment or bullying, and privacy violations, such as data breaches or identify theft, are very common occurrences on these platforms.

Some users – especially younger women – report being the target of rude or harassing behavior while on these platforms

Some experts contend that the open nature of online dating — that is, the fact that many users are strangers to one another — has created a less civil dating environment and therefore makes it difficult to hold people accountable for their behavior. This survey finds that a notable share of online daters have been subjected to some form of harassment measured in this survey.

Roughly three-in-ten or more online dating users say someone through a dating site or app continued to contact them after they said they were not interested (37%), sent them a sexually explicit message or image they didn’t ask for (35%) or called them an offensive name (28%). Fewer online daters say someone via a dating site or app has threatened to physically harm them.

Younger women are particularly likely to encounter each of these behaviors. Six-in-ten female online dating users ages 18 to 34 say someone via a dating site or app continued to contact them after they said they were not interested, while 57% report that another user has sent them a sexually explicit message or image they didn’t ask for. Other negative interactions are more violent in nature: 19% of younger female users say someone on a dating site or app has threatened to physically harm them – roughly twice the rate of men in the same age range who say this.

The likelihood of encountering these kinds of behaviors on dating platforms also varies by sexual orientation. Fully 56% of LGB users say someone on a dating site or app has sent them a sexually explicit message or image they didn’t ask for, compared with about one-third of straight users (32%). LGB users are also more likely than straight users to say someone on a dating site or app continued to contact them after they told them they were not interested, called them an offensive name or threatened to physically harm them.

Online dating is not universally seen as a safe way to meet someone

The creators of online dating sites and apps have at times struggled with the perception that these sites could facilitate troubling – or even dangerous – encounters. And although there is some evidence that much of the stigma surrounding these sites has diminished over time, close to half of Americans still find the prospect of meeting someone through a dating site unsafe.

Some 53% of Americans overall (including those who have and have not online dated) agree that dating sites and apps are a very or somewhat safe way to meet people, while a somewhat smaller share (46%) believe these platforms are a not too or not at all safe way of meeting people.

Americans who have never used a dating site or app are particularly skeptical about the safety of online dating. Roughly half of adults who have never used a dating or app (52%) believe that these platforms are a not too or not at all safe way to meet others, compared with 29% of those who have online dated.

There are some groups who are particularly wary of the idea of meeting someone through dating platforms. Women are more inclined than men to believe that dating sites and apps are not a safe way to meet someone (53% vs. 39%).

Age and education are also linked to differing attitudes about the topic. For example, 59% of Americans ages 65 and older say meeting someone this way is not safe, compared with 51% of those ages 50 to 64 and 39% among adults under the age of 50. Those who have a high school education or less are especially likely to say that dating sites and apps are not a safe way to meet people, compared with those who have some college experience or who have at bachelor’s or advanced degree. These patterns are consistent regardless of each group’s own personal experience with using dating sites or apps.

Pluralities think online dating has neither helped nor harmed dating and relationships and that relationships that start online are just as successful as those that begin offline

Americans – regardless of whether they have personally used online dating services or not – also weighed in on the virtues and pitfalls of online dating. Some 22% of Americans say online dating sites and apps have had a mostly positive effect on dating and relationships, while a similar proportion (26%) believe their effect has been mostly negative. Still, the largest share of adults – 50% – say online dating has had neither a positive nor negative effect on dating and relationships.

Respondents who say online dating’s effect has been mostly positive or mostly negative were asked to explain in their own words why they felt this way. Some of the most common reasons provided by those who believe online dating has had a positive effect focus on its ability to expand people’s dating pools and to allow people to evaluate someone before agreeing to meet in person. These users also believe dating sites and apps generally make the process of dating easier. On the other hand, people who said online dating has had a mostly negative effect most commonly cite dishonesty and the idea that users misrepresent themselves.

Pluralities also believe that whether a couple met online or in person has little effect on the success of their relationship. Just over half of Americans (54%) say that relationships where couples meet through a dating site or app are just as successful as those that begin in person, 38% believe these relationships are less successful, while 5% deem them more successful.

Public attitudes about the impact or success of online dating differ between those who have used dating platforms and those who have not. While 29% of online dating users say dating sites and apps have had a mostly positive effect on dating and relationships, that share is 21% among non-users. People who have ever used a dating site or app also have a more positive assessment of relationships forged online. Some 62% of online daters believe relationships where people first met through a dating site or app are just as successful as those that began in person, compared with 52% of those who never online dated.

• Pew Research Center’s 2013 survey about online dating was conducted via telephone, while the 2019 survey was fielded online through the Center’s American Trends Panel . In addition, there were some changes in question wording between these surveys. Please read the Methodology section for full details on how the 2019 survey was conducted. ↩
• Other studies show that online dating is playing a larger role in how romantic partners meet. See Rosenfeld, Michael J., Reuben J. Thomas, and Sonia Hausen. 2019. “ Disintermediating your friends: How online dating in the United States displaces other ways of meeting .” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. ↩
• This survey includes an oversample of lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB) adults. For more details, see the Methodology section of the report. ↩
• Other research suggests that online dating is an especially important way for populations with a small pool of potential partners – such as those who identify as gay or lesbian – to identify and meet partners. See Rosenfeld, Michael J., and Thomas, Reuben J. 2012. “ Searching for a Mate: The Rise of the Internet as a Social Intermediary .” American Sociological Review. ↩

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Managing Impressions Online: Self-Presentation Processes in the Online Dating Environment

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Nicole Ellison, Rebecca Heino, Jennifer Gibbs, Managing Impressions Online: Self-Presentation Processes in the Online Dating Environment, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication , Volume 11, Issue 2, 1 January 2006, Pages 415–441, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2006.00020.x

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This study investigates self-presentation strategies among online dating participants, exploring how participants manage their online presentation of self in order to accomplish the goal of finding a romantic partner. Thirty-four individuals active on a large online dating site participated in telephone interviews about their online dating experiences and perceptions. Qualitative data analysis suggests that participants attended to small cues online, mediated the tension between impression management pressures and the desire to present an authentic sense of self through tactics such as creating a profile that reflected their “ideal self,” and attempted to establish the veracity of their identity claims. This study provides empirical support for Social Information Processing theory in a naturalistic context while offering insight into the complicated way in which “honesty” is enacted online.

The online dating arena represents an opportunity to document changing cultural norms surrounding technology-mediated relationship formation and to gain insight into important aspects of online behavior, such as impression formation and self-presentation strategies. Mixed-mode relationships, wherein people first meet online and then move offline, challenge established theories that focus on exclusively online relationships and provide opportunities for new theory development ( Walther & Parks, 2002 ). Although previous research has explored relationship development and self-presentation online ( Bargh, McKenna, & Fitzsimons, 2002; McLaughlin, Osbourne, & Ellison, 1997; Parks & Floyd, 1996; Roberts & Parks, 1999; Utz, 2000 ), the online dating forum is qualitatively different from many other online settings due to the anticipation of face-to-face interaction inherent in this context ( Gibbs, Ellison, & Heino, 2006 ) and the fact that social practices are still nascent.

In recent years, the use of online dating or online personals services has evolved from a marginal to a mainstream social practice. In 2003, at least 29 million Americans (two out of five singles) used an online dating service ( Gershberg, 2004 ); in 2004, on average, there were 40 million unique visitors to online dating sites each month in the U.S. ( CBC News, 2004 ). In fact, the online personals category is one of the most lucrative forms of paid content on the web in the United States ( Egan, 2003 ) and the online dating market is expected to reach $642 million in 2008 ( Greenspan, 2003 ). Ubiquitous access to the Internet, the diminished social stigma associated with online dating, and the affordable cost of Internet matchmaking services contribute to the increasingly common perception that online dating is a viable, efficient way to meet dating or long-term relationship partners ( St. John, 2002 ). Mediated matchmaking is certainly not a new phenomenon: Newspaper personal advertisements have existed since the mid-19th century ( Schaefer, 2003 ) and video dating was popular in the 1980s ( Woll & Cosby, 1987; Woll & Young, 1989 ). Although scholars working in a variety of academic disciplines have studied these earlier forms of mediated matchmaking (e.g., Ahuvia & Adelman, 1992; Lynn & Bolig, 1985; Woll, 1986; Woll & Cosby, 1987 ), current Internet dating services are substantively different from these incarnations due to their larger user base and more sophisticated self-presentation options.

Contemporary theoretical perspectives allow us to advance our understanding of how the age-old process of mate-finding is transformed through online strategies and behaviors. For instance, Social Information Processing (SIP) theory and other frameworks help illuminate computer-mediated communication (CMC), interpersonal communication, and impression management processes. This article focuses on the ways in which CMC interactants manage their online self-presentation and contributes to our knowledge of these processes by examining these issues in the naturalistic context of online dating, using qualitative data gathered from in-depth interviews with online dating participants.

In contrast to a technologically deterministic perspective that focuses on the characteristics of the technologies themselves, or a socially deterministic approach that privileges user behavior, this article reflects a social shaping perspective. Social shaping of technology approaches ( Dutton, 1996; MacKenzie & Wajcman, 1985; Woolgar, 1996 ) acknowledge the ways in which information and communication technologies (ICTs) both shape and are shaped by social practices. As Dutton points out, “technologies can open, close, and otherwise shape social choices, although not always in the ways expected on the basis of rationally extrapolating from the perceived properties of technology” (1996, p. 9). One specific framework that reflects this approach is Howard’s (2004) embedded media perspective, which acknowledges both the capacities and the constraints of ICTs. Capacities are those aspects of technology that enhance our ability to connect with one another, enact change, and so forth; constraints are those aspects of technology that hinder our ability to achieve these goals. An important aspect of technology use, which is mentioned but not explicitly highlighted in Howard’s framework, is the notion of circumvention , which describes the specific strategies employed by individuals to exploit the capacities and minimize the constraints associated with their use of ICTs. Although the notion of circumvention is certainly not new to CMC researchers, this article seeks to highlight the importance of circumvention practices when studying the social aspects of technology use. 1

Self-Presentation and Self-Disclosure in Online and Offline Contexts

Self-presentation and self-disclosure processes are important aspects of relational development in offline settings ( Taylor & Altman, 1987 ), especially in early stages. Goffman’s work on self-presentation explicates the ways in which an individual may engage in strategic activities “to convey an impression to others which it is in his interests to convey” (1959, p. 4). These impression-management behaviors consist of expressions given (communication in the traditional sense, e.g., spoken communication) and expressions given off (presumably unintentional communication, such as nonverbal communication cues). Self-presentation strategies are especially important during relationship initiation, as others will use this information to decide whether to pursue a relationship ( Derlega, Winstead, Wong, & Greenspan, 1987 ). Research suggests that when individuals expect to meet a potential dating partner for the first time, they will alter their self-presentational behavior in accordance with the values desired by the prospective date ( Rowatt, Cunningham, & Druen, 1998 ). Even when interacting with strangers, individuals tend to engage in self-enhancement ( Schlenker & Pontari, 2000 ).

However, research suggests that pressures to highlight one’s positive attributes are experienced in tandem with the need to present one’s true (or authentic) self to others, especially in significant relationships. Intimacy in relationships is linked to feeling understood by one’s partner ( Reis & Shaver, 1988 ) and develops “through a dynamic process whereby an individual discloses personal information, thoughts, and feelings to a partner; receives a response from the partner; and interprets that response as understanding, validating, and caring” ( Laurenceau, Barrett, & Pietromonaco, 1998 , p. 1238). Therefore, if participants aspire to an intimate relationship, their desire to feel understood by their interaction partners will motivate self-disclosures that are open and honest as opposed to deceptive. This tension between authenticity and impression management is inherent in many aspects of self-disclosure. In making decisions about what and when to self-disclose, individuals often struggle to reconcile opposing needs such as openness and autonomy ( Greene, Derlega, & Mathews, 2006 ).

Interactants in online environments experience these same pressures and desires, but the greater control over self-presentational behavior in CMC allows individuals to manage their online interactions more strategically. Due to the asynchronous nature of CMC, and the fact that CMC emphasizes verbal and linguistic cues over less controllable nonverbal communication cues, online self-presentation is more malleable and subject to self-censorship than face-to-face self-presentation ( Walther, 1996 ). In Goffman’s (1959) terms, more expressions of self are “given” rather than “given off.” This greater control over self-presentation does not necessarily lead to misrepresentation online. Due to the “passing stranger” effect ( Rubin, 1975 ) and the visual anonymity present in CMC ( Joinson, 2001 ), under certain conditions the online medium may enable participants to express themselves more openly and honestly than in face-to-face contexts.

A commonly accepted understanding of identity presumes that there are multiple aspects of the self which are expressed or made salient in different contexts. Higgins (1987) argues there are three domains of the self: the actual self (attributes an individual possesses), the ideal self (attributes an individual would ideally possess), and the ought self (attributes an individual ought to possess); discrepancies between one’s actual and ideal self are linked to feelings of dejection. Klohnen and Mendelsohn (1998) determined that individuals’ descriptions of their “ideal self” influenced perceptions of their romantic partners in the direction of their ideal self-conceptions. Bargh et al. (2002) found that in comparison to face-to-face interactions, Internet interactions allowed individuals to better express aspects of their true selves—aspects of themselves that they wanted to express but felt unable to. The relative anonymity of online interactions and the lack of a shared social network online may allow individuals to reveal potentially negative aspects of the self online ( Bargh et al., 2002 ).

Although self-presentation in personal web sites has been examined ( Dominick, 1999; Schau & Gilly, 2003 ), the realm of online dating has not been studied as extensively (for exceptions, see Baker, 2002; Fiore & Donath, 2004 ), and this constitutes a gap in the current research on online self-presentation and disclosure. The online dating realm differs from other CMC environments in crucial ways that may affect self-presentational strategies. For instance, the anticipated future face-to-face interaction inherent in most online dating interactions may diminish participants’ sense of visual anonymity, an important variable in many online self-disclosure studies. An empirical study of online dating participants found that those who anticipated greater face-to-face interaction did feel that they were more open in their disclosures, and did not suppress negative aspects of the self ( Gibbs et al., 2006 ). In addition, because the goal of many online dating participants is an intimate relationship, these individuals may be more motivated to engage in authentic self-disclosures.

Credibility Assessment and Demonstration in Online Self-Presentation

Misrepresentation in online environments.

As discussed, online environments offer individuals an increased ability to control their self-presentation, and therefore greater opportunities to engage in misrepresentation ( Cornwell & Lundgren, 2001 ). Concerns about the prospect of online deception are common ( Bowker & Tuffin, 2003; Donath, 1999; Donn & Sherman, 2002 ), and narratives about identity deception have been reproduced in both academic and popular outlets ( Joinson & Dietz-Uhler, 2002; Stone, 1996; Van Gelder, 1996 ). Some theorists argue that CMC gives participants more freedom to explore playful, fantastical online personae that differ from their “real life” identities ( Stone, 1996 ; Turkle, 1995 ). In certain online settings, such as online role-playing games, a schism between one’s online representation and one’s offline identity are inconsequential, even expected. For instance, MacKinnon (1995) notes that among Usenet participants it is common practice to “forget” about the relationship between actual identities and online personae.

The online dating environment is different, however, because participants are typically seeking an intimate relationship and therefore desire agreement between others’ online identity claims and offline identities. Online dating participants report that deception is the “main perceived disadvantage of online dating” ( Brym & Lenton, 2001 , p. 3) and see it as commonplace: A survey of one online dating site’s participants found that 86% felt others misrepresented their physical appearance ( Gibbs et al., 2006 ). A 2001 research study found that over a quarter of online dating participants reported misrepresenting some aspect of their identity, most commonly age (14%), marital status (10%), and appearance (10%) ( Brym & Lenton, 2001 ). Perceptions that others are lying may encourage reciprocal deception, because users will exaggerate to the extent that they feel others are exaggerating or deceiving ( Fiore & Donath, 2004 ). Concerns about deception in this setting have spawned related services that help online daters uncover inaccuracies in others’ representations and run background checks on would-be suitors ( Baertlein, 2004 ; Fernandez, 2005 ). One site, True.com , conducts background checks on their users and has worked to introduce legislation that would force other online dating sites to either conduct background checks on their users or display a disclaimer ( Lee, 2004 ).

The majority of online dating participants claim they are truthful ( Gibbs et al., 2006; Brym & Lenton, 2001 ), and research suggests that some of the technical and social aspects of online dating may discourage deceptive communication. For instance, anticipation of face-to-face communication influences self-representation choices ( Walther, 1994 ) and self-disclosures because individuals will more closely monitor their disclosures as the perceived probability of future face-to-face interaction increases ( Berger, 1979 ) and will engage in more intentional or deliberate self-disclosure ( Gibbs et al., 2006 ). Additionally, Hancock, Thom-Santelli, and Ritchie (2004) note that the design features of a medium may affect lying behaviors, and that the use of recorded media (in which messages are archived in some fashion, such as an online dating profile) will discourage lying. Also, online dating participants are typically seeking a romantic partner, which may lower their motivation for misrepresentation compared to other online relationships. Further, Cornwell and Lundgren (2001) found that individuals involved in online romantic relationships were more likely to engage in misrepresentation than those involved in face-to-face romantic relationships, but that this was directly related to the level of involvement. That is, respondents were less involved in their cyberspace relationships and therefore more likely to engage in misrepresentation. This lack of involvement is less likely in relationships started in an online dating forum, especially sites that promote marriage as a goal.

Public perceptions about the higher incidence of deception online are also contradicted by research that suggests that lying is a typical occurrence in everyday offline life ( DePaulo, Kashy, Kirkendol, Wyer, & Epstein, 1996 ), including situations in which people are trying to impress prospective dates ( Rowatt et al., 1998 ). Additionally, empirical data about the true extent of misrepresentation in this context is lacking. The current literature relies on self-reported data, and therefore offers only limited insight into the extent to which misrepresentation may be occurring. Hitsch, Hortacsu, and Ariely (2004) use creative techniques to address this issue, such as comparing participants’ self-reported characteristics to patterns found in national survey data, but no research to date has attempted to validate participants’ self-reported assessments of the honesty of their self-descriptions.

Assessing and Demonstrating Credibility in CMC

The potential for misrepresentation online, combined with the time and effort invested in face-to-face dates, make assessment strategies critical for online daters. These assessment strategies may then influence participants’ self-presentational strategies as they seek to prove their trustworthiness while simultaneously assessing the credibility of others.

Online dating participants operate in an environment in which assessing the identity of others is a complex and evolving process of reading signals and deconstructing cues, using both active and passive strategies ( Berger, 1979; Ramirez, Walther, Burgoon, & Sunnafrank, 2002; Tidwell & Walther, 2002 ). SIP considers how Internet users develop impressions of others, even with the limited cues available online, and suggests that interactants will adapt to the remaining cues in order to make decisions about others ( Walther, 1992; Walther, Anderson, & Park, 1994 ). Online users look to small cues in order to develop impressions of others, such as a poster’s email address ( Donath, 1999 ), the links on a person’s homepage ( Kibby, 1997 ), even the timing of email messages ( Walther & Tidwell, 1995 ). In expressing affinity, CMC users are adept at using language ( Walther, Loh, & Granka, 2005 ) and CMC-specific conventions, especially as they become more experienced online ( Utz, 2000 ). In short, online users become cognitive misers, forming impressions of others while conserving mental energy ( Wallace, 1999 ).

Walther and Parks (2002) propose the concept of “warranting” as a useful conceptual tool for understanding how users validate others’ online identity cues (see also Stone, 1996 ). The connection, or warrant, between one’s self-reported online persona and one’s offline aspects of self is less certain and more mutable than in face-to-face settings ( Walther & Parks, 2002 ). In online settings, users will look for signals that are difficult to mimic or govern in order to assess others’ identity claims ( Donath, 1999 ). For instance, individuals might use search engines to locate newsgroup postings by the person under scrutiny, knowing that this searching is covert and that the newsgroup postings most likely were authored without the realization that they would be archived ( Ramirez et al., 2002 ). In the context of online dating, because of the perceptions of deception that characterize this sphere and the self-reported nature of individuals’ profiles, participants may adopt specific presentation strategies geared towards providing warrants for their identity claims.

In light of the above, our research question is thus:

RQ: How do online dating participants manage their online presentation of self in order to accomplish the goal of finding a romantic partner?

In order to gain insight into this question, we interviewed online dating participants about their experiences, thoughts, and behaviors. The qualitative data reported in this article were collected as part of a larger research project which surveyed a national random sample of users of a large online dating site (N = 349) about relational goals, honesty and self-disclosure, and perceived success in online dating. The survey findings are reported in Gibbs et al. (2006) .

Research Site

Our study addresses contemporary CMC theory using naturalistic observations. Participants were members of a large online dating service, “ Connect.com ” (a pseudonym). Connect.com currently has 15 million active members in more than 200 countries around the world and shares structural characteristics with many other online dating services, offering users the ability to create profiles, search others’ profiles, and communicate via a manufactured email address. In their profiles, participants may include one or more photographs and a written (open-ended) description of themselves and their desired mate. They also answer a battery of closed-ended questions, with preset category-based answers, about descriptors such as income, body type, religion, marital status, and alcohol usage. Users can conduct database searches that generate a list of profiles that match their desired parameters (usually gender, sexual orientation, age, and location). Initial communication occurs through a double-blind email system, in which both email addresses are masked, and participants usually move from this medium to others as the relationship progresses.

Data Collection

Given the relative lack of prior research on the phenomenon of online dating, we used qualitative methods to explore the diverse ways in which participants understood and made sense of their experience ( Berger & Luckman, 1980 ) through their own rich descriptions and explanations ( Miles & Huberman, 1994 ). We took an inductive approach based on general research questions informed by literature on online self-presentation and relationship formation rather than preset hypotheses. In addition to asking about participants’ backgrounds, the interview protocol included open-ended questions about their online dating history and goals, profile construction, honesty and self-disclosure online, criteria used to assess others online, and relationship development. Interviews were semistructured to ensure that all participants were asked certain questions and to encourage participants to raise other issues they felt were relevant to the research. The protocol included questions such as: “How did you decide what to say about yourself in your profile? Are you trying to convey a certain impression of yourself with your profile? If you showed your profile to one of your close friends, what do you think their response would be? Are there any personal characteristics that you avoided mentioning or tried to deemphasize?” (The full protocol is available from the authors.)

As recommended for qualitative research ( Eisenhardt, 1989; Glaser & Strauss, 1967 ), we employed theoretical sampling rather than random sampling. In theoretical sampling, cases are chosen based on theoretical (developed a priori) categories to provide examples of polar types, rather than for statistical generalizability to a larger population ( Eisenhardt, 1989 ). The Director of Market Research at Connect.com initially contacted a subsample of members in the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay areas, inviting them to participate in an interview and offering them a free one-month subscription to Connect.com in return. Those members who did not respond within a week received a reminder email. Of those contacted, 76 people volunteered to participate in an interview. Out of these 76 volunteers, we selected and scheduled interviews with 36 (although two were unable to participate due to scheduling issues). We chose interview participants to ensure a good mix on each of our theoretical categories: gender, age, urban/rural, income, and ethnicity. We focused exclusively on those seeking relationships with the opposite sex, as this group constitutes the majority of Connect.com users. We also confirmed that they were active participants in the site by ensuring that their last login date was within the past week and checking that each had a profile.

Fifty percent of our participants were female and 50% were male, with 76% from an urban location in Los Angeles and 24% from a more rural area surrounding the town of Modesto in the central valley of California. Participants’ ages ranged from 25 to 70, with most being in their 30s and 40s. Their online dating experience varied from 1 month to 5 years. Although our goal was to sample a mix of participants who varied on key demographic criteria rather than generalizing to a larger population, our sample is in fact reflective of the demographic characteristics of the larger population of Connect.com ’s subscribers. Thirty-four interviews were conducted in June and July 2003. Interviews were conducted by telephone, averaging 45 minutes and ranging from 30 to 90 minutes in length. The interview database consisted of 551 pages, including 223,001 words, with an average of 6559 words per interview.

Data Analysis

All of the phone interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and checked for accuracy by the researcher who conducted the interview. Atlas.ti, a software program used for qualitative content analysis, was used to analyze interview transcripts. Data analysis was conducted in an iterative process, in which data from one informant were confirmed or contradicted by data from others in order to refine theoretical categories, propositions, and conclusions as they emerged from the data ( Lincoln & Guba, 1985 ). We used microanalysis of the text ( Strauss & Corbin, 1998 ) to look for common themes among participants. The data analysis process consisted of systematic line-by-line coding of each transcript by the first two authors. Following grounded theory ( Glaser & Strauss, 1967 ), we used an iterative process of coding. Coding consisted of both factual codes (e.g., “age,”“female,”“Los Angeles”) and referential codes (e.g., “filter,”“rejection,”“honesty”) and served both to simplify and reduce data as well as to complicate data by expanding, transforming, and reconceptualizing concepts ( Coffey & Atkinson, 1996 ). New codes were added throughout the process, and then earlier transcripts were recoded to include these new conceptual categories. All of the data were coded twice to ensure thoroughness and accuracy of codes. The researchers had frequent discussions in which they compared and refined coding categories and schemes to ensure consistency. During the coding process, some codes were collapsed or removed when they appeared to be conceptually identical, while others were broken out into separate codes when further nuances among them became apparent.

A total of 98 codes were generated by the first two authors as they coded the interviews. Unitization was flexible in order to capture complete thought units. Codes were allowed to overlap ( Krippendorff, 1980 ); this method of assigning multiple codes to the same thought unit facilitated the process of identifying relationships between codes. See Appendixes A and B for more information on codes.

These interview data offer insight into the self-presentation strategies utilized by participants in order to maximize the benefits and minimize the risks of online dating. Many of these strategies revolved around the profile, which is a crucial self-presentation tool because it is the first and primary means of expressing one’s self during the early stages of a correspondence and can therefore foreclose or create relationship opportunities. These strategies are intimately connected to the specific characteristics of the online dating context: fewer cues, an increased ability to manage self-presentation, and the need to establish credibility.

The Importance of Small Cues

When discussing their self-presentational strategies, many participants directly or indirectly referred to the fact that they carefully attended to subtle, almost minute cues in others’ presentational messages, and often seemed to take the same degree of care when crafting their own messages. As suggested by SIP ( Walther, 1992 ), subtle cues such as misspellings in the online environment are important clues to identity for CMC interactants. For instance, one participant said she looked for profiles that were well-written, because “I just think if they can’t spell or … formulate sentences, I would imagine that they’re not that educated.” Because writing ability was perceived to be a cue that was “given off” or not as controllable, participants noticed misspelled words in profiles, interpreting them as evidence of lack of interest or education. As one female participant put it, “If I am getting email from someone that obviously can’t spell or put a full sentence together, I’m thinking what other parts of his life suffer from the same lack of attentiveness?” These individuals often created their own profiles with these concerns in mind. For instance, one participant who found spelling errors “unattractive” composed his emails in a word processing program to check spelling and grammar.

Many of the individuals we interviewed explicitly considered how others might interpret their profiles and carefully assessed the signals each small action or comment might send:

I really analyzed the way I was going to present myself. I’m not one of these [people who write] all cutesy type things, but I wanted to be cute enough, smart enough, funny enough, and not sexual at all, because I didn’t want to invite someone who thought I was going to go to bed with them [as soon as] I shook their hand. (PaliToWW, Los Angeles Female) 2

In this case, the participant “really analyzed” her self-presentation cues and avoided any mention of sexuality, which she felt might indicate promiscuity in the exaggerated context of the profile. This same understanding of the signals “sexual” references would send was reflected in the profile of another participant, who purposefully included sexually explicit terminology in his profile to “weed out” poor matches based on his past experience:

The reason I put [the language] in there is because I had some experiences where I got together [with someone], we both really liked each other, and then it turned out that I was somebody who really liked sex and she was somebody that could take it or leave it. So I put that in there to sort of weed those people out. (imdannyboy, Los Angeles Male)

Participants spoke of the ways in which they incorporated feedback from others in order to shape their self-presentational messages. In some cases, they seemed genuinely surprised by the ways in which the digital medium allowed information to leak out. For instance, one male participant who typically wrote emails late at night discussed his reaction to a message that said, “Wow, it’s 1:18 in the morning, what are you doing writing me?” This email helped him realize how much of a “night owl” he was, and “how not attractive that may be for women I’m writing because it’s very clear the time I send the email.” Over time, he also realized that the length of his emails was shaping impressions of him, and he therefore regulated their length. He said:

In the course of [corresponding with others on the site] I became aware of how I had to present myself. Also, I became quite aware that I had to be very brief. … More often than not when I would write a long response, I wouldn’t get a response. … I think it implied. … that I was too desperate for conversation, [that] I was a hermit. (joet8, Los Angeles Male)

The site displayed the last time a user was active on the site, and this small cue was interpreted as a reliable indicator of availability. As one male participant said, “I’m not going to email somebody who hasn’t been on there for at least a week max. If it’s been two weeks since she’s logged on, forget her, she’s either dating or there’s a problem.”

Overall, the mediated nature of these initial interactions meant that fewer cues were available, therefore amplifying the importance of those that remained. Participants carefully attended to small cues, such as spelling ability or last login date, in others’ profiles in order to form impressions. In a self-reflexive fashion, they applied these techniques to their own presentational messages, carefully scrutinizing both cues given (such as photograph) and, when possible, those perceived to be given off (such as grammar).

Balancing Accuracy and Desirability in Self-Presentation

Almost all of our participants reported that they attempted to represent themselves accurately in their profiles and interactions. Many expressed incomprehension as to why others with a shared goal of an offline romantic relationship would intentionally misrepresent themselves. As one participant explained, “They polish it up some, like we all probably do a little bit, but for the most part I would say people are fairly straightforward.” However, as suggested by previous research on self-disclosure and relationship development, participants reported competing desires. At times, their need to portray a truthful, accurate self-representation was in tension with their natural inclination to project a version of self that was attractive, successful, and desirable. Speaking about this tendency towards impression management, one participant noted that she could see why “people would be dishonest at some point because they are still trying to be attractive … in the sense they would want this other person to like them.”

One way in which participants reconciled their conflicting needs for positive self-presentation and accuracy was to create profiles that described a potential, future version of self. In some cases, participants described how they or others created profiles that reflected an ideal as opposed to actual self: “Many people describe themselves the way they want [to be] … their ideal themselves.” For example, individuals might identify themselves as active in various activities (e.g., hiking, surfing) in which they rarely participated, prompting one participant to proclaim sarcastically, “I’ve never known so many incredibly athletic women in my life!” One participant explained,

For instance, I am also an avid hiker and [scuba diver] and sometimes I have communicated with someone that has presented themselves the same way, but then it turns out they like scuba diving but they haven’t done it for 10 years, they like hiking but they do it once every second year … I think they may not have tried to lie; they just have perceived themselves differently because they write about the person they want to be … In their profile they write about their dreams as if they are reality. (Christo1, Los Angeles Male)

In two cases, individuals admitted to representing themselves as less heavy than they actually were. This thinner persona represented a (desired) future state for these individuals: “The only thing I kind of feel bad about is that the picture I have of myself is a very good picture from maybe five years ago. I’ve gained a little bit of weight and I feel kind of bad about that. I’m going to, you know, lose it again.” In another case, a woman who misrepresented her weight online used an upcoming meeting as incentive to minimize the discrepancy between her actual self and the ideal self articulated in her profile:

I’ve lost 44 pounds since I’ve started [online dating], and I mean, that’s one of the reasons I lost the weight so I can thank online dating for that. [Because] the first guy that hit on me, I checked my profile and I had lied a little bit about the pounds, so I thought I had better start losing some weight so that it would be more honest. That was in December, and I’ve lost every week since then. (MaryMoon, Los Angeles Female)

In this case, a later physical change neutralized the initial discursive deception. For another participant, the profile served as an opportunity to envision and ideate a version of self that was future-focused and goal-oriented:

I sort of thought about what is my ideal self. Because when you date, you present your best foot forward. I thought about all the qualities that I have, you know, even if I sometimes make mistakes and stuff. … And also got together the best picture I had, and kind of came up with what I thought my goals were at the time, because I thought that was an important thing to stress. (Marty7, Los Angeles Male)

Overall, participants did not see this as engaging in deceptive communication per se, but rather as presenting an idealized self or portraying personal qualities they intended to develop or enhance.

Circumventing Constraints

In addition to impression management pressures, participants’ expressed desires for accurate representation were stymied by various constraints, including the technical interface of the website. In order to activate an online profile, participants had to complete a questionnaire with many closed-ended responses for descriptors such as age, body type, zip code, and income. These answers became very important because they were the variables that others used to construct searches in order to narrow the vast pool of profiles. In fact, the front page of Connect.com includes a “quick” search on those descriptors believed to be most important: age, geographical location, inclusion of photograph, and gender/sexual orientation.

The structure of the search parameters encouraged some to alter information to fit into a wider range of search parameters, a circumvention behavior that guaranteed a wider audience for their profile. For example, participants tended to misrepresent their age for fear of being “filtered out.” It was not unusual for users who were one or two years older than a natural breakpoint (i.e., 35 or 50) to adjust their age so they would still show up in search results. This behavior, especially if one’s actual age was revealed during subsequent email or telephone exchanges, seemed to be socially acceptable. Many of our participants recounted cases in which others freely and without embarrassment admitted that they had slightly misrepresented something in their profile, typically very early in the correspondence:

They don’t seem to be embarrassed about [misrepresenting their age] … in their first reply they say, “oh by the way, I am not so many years, I am that many years.” And then if I ask them, they say, well, they tend to be attracted to a little bit younger crowd and they are afraid that guys may surf for a certain age group of women, because you use those filters. I mean, I may choose to list only those that are between X and Y years old and they don’t want to be filtered away. … They are trying to be sort of clever so that people they tend to be attracted to will actually find them. (Christo1, Los Angeles Male)

If lying about one’s age was perceived to be the norm, those who didn’t engage in this practice felt themselves to be at a disadvantage (see Fiore & Donath, 2004 ). For instance, one participant who misrepresented his age on his profile noted:

I’m such an honest guy, why should I have to lie about my age? On the other hand, if I put X number of years, that is unattractive to certain people. They’re never going to search that group and they’re never going to have an opportunity to meet me, because they have a number in their mind just like I do. … Everybody lies about their age or a lot of people do. … So I have to cheat too in order to be on the same page as everybody else that cheats. If I don’t cheat that makes me seem twice as old. So if I say I am 44, people think that I am 48. It blows. (RealSweetheart, Bay Area Male)

In the above cases, users engaged in misrepresentation triggered by the social norms of the environment and the structure of the search filters. The technical constraints of the site may have initiated a more subtle form of misrepresentation when participants were required to choose among a limited set of options, none of which described them sufficiently. For instance, when creating their profiles, participants had to designate their “perfect date” by selecting one from a dozen or so generic descriptions, which was frustrating for those who did not see any that were particularly appealing. In another case, one participant complained that there was not an option to check “plastic surgery” as one of his “turn-offs” and thus he felt forced to try to discern this from the photos; yet another participant expressed his desire for a “shaved” option under the description of hair type (“I resent having to check ‘bald’”).

Foggy Mirror

In addition to the cases in which misrepresentation was triggered by technical constraints or the tendency to present an idealized self, participants described a third branch of unintentional misrepresentation triggered by the limits of self-knowledge. We call this phenomenon “foggy mirror” based on this participant’s explanation:

People like to write about themselves. Sometimes it’s not truthful, but it’s how they see themselves and that gives you a different slant on an individual. This is how they really see themselves. Sometimes you will see a person who weighs 900 pounds and—this is just an exaggeration—and they will have on spandex, you’ll think, “God, I wish I had their mirror, because obviously their mirror tells them they look great.” It’s the same thing with online. (KarieK, Bay Area Female)

This user acknowledges that sometimes others weren’t lying per se, but the fact that their self-image differed from others’ perceptions meant that their textual self-descriptions would diverge from a third party’s description. In explaining this phenomenon, KarieK used the metaphor of a mirror to emphasize the self-reflexive nature of the profile. She also refers to the importance of subtle cues when she notes that a user’s self-presentation choices give one a “different slant on an individual.” The term “foggy mirror” thus describes the gap between self-perceptions and the assessments made by others. The difference might be overly positive (which was typically the case) or negative, as the below example illustrates. A male participant explained:

There was one gal who said that she had an “average” body shape. … When I met her she was thin, and she said she was “average,” but I think she has a different concept of what “average” is. So I then widened my scope [in terms of search parameters] and would go off the photographs. What a woman thinks is an “average” body and what I think is an “average” body are two different things. (joet8, Los Angeles Male)

In this case, the participant acknowledged the semantic problems that accompany textual self-descriptions and adopted a strategy of relying on photographs as visual, objective evidence, instead of subjective, ambiguous terms like “average.” To counter the “foggy mirror” syndrome in their own profiles, some individuals asked friends or family members to read their profiles in order to validate them.

In regards to self-presentation, the most significant tension experienced by participants was one not unique to the online medium: mediating between the pressures to present an enhanced or desired self ( Goffman, 1959 ) and the need to present one’s true self to a partner in order to achieve intimacy ( Reis & Shaver, 1988 ). In their profiles and online interactions, they attempted to present a vision of self that was attractive, engaging, and worthy of pursuit, but realistic and honest enough that subsequent face-to-face meetings were not unpleasant or surprising. Constructing a profile that reflected one’s “ideal self” ( Higgins, 1987 ) was one tactic by which participants reconciled these pressures. In general, although all of our participants claimed they attempted to be honest in their self-presentation, misrepresentations occurred when participants felt pressure to fudge in order to circumvent the search filters, felt the closed-ended options provided by the site didn’t describe them accurately, or were limited by their self-knowledge.

Establishing Credibility

The increased ability to engage in selective self-presentation, and the absence of visual cues in the online environment, meant that accuracy of self-presentation was a salient issue for our interviewees. The twin concerns that resulted from these factors—the challenge of establishing the credibility of one’s own self-descriptions while assessing the credibility of others’ identity claims—affected one another in a recursive fashion. In an environment in which there were limited outside confirmatory resources to draw upon, participants developed a set of rules for assessing others while incorporating these codes into their own self-presentational messages. For example, one participant made sure that her profile photograph showed her standing up because she felt that sitting or leaning poses were a camouflage technique used by heavier people. This illustrates the recursive way in which participants developed rules for assessing others (e.g., avoid people in sitting poses) while also applying these rubrics to their own self-presentational messages (e.g., don’t show self in sitting pose).

Participants adopted specific tactics in order to compensate for the fact that traditional methods of information seeking were limited and that self-reported descriptions were subject to intentional or unintentional misrepresentation when others took advantage of the “selective self-presentation” ( Walther & Burgoon, 1992 ) available in CMC. As one participant noted, “You’re just kind of blind, you don’t know if what they’re saying in their profile online is true.” Acknowledging the potential for misrepresentation, participants also sought to “show” aspects of their personality in their profiles versus just “telling” others about themselves. They created their profiles with an eye towards stories or content that confirmed specific personality traits rather than including a ‘laundry list’ of attributes. As one Los Angeles male participant explained, “I attempted to have stories in my profile somewhat to attempt to demonstrate my character, as opposed to, you know, [just writing] ‘I’m trustworthy,’ and all that bit.” This emphasis on demonstration as opposed to description was a tactic designed to circumvent the lack of a shared social context that would have warranted identity claims and hedged against blatant deception.

Another aspect of “showing” included the use of photographs, which served to warrant or support claims made in textual descriptions. Profile photographs communicated not only what people looked like (or claimed to look like), but also indicated the qualities they felt were important. For instance, one man with a doctorate included one photo of himself standing against a wall displaying his diplomas and another of him shirtless. When asked about his choice of photos, he explained that he selected the shirtless photo because he was proud of being in shape and wanted to show it off. He picked the combination of the two photos because “one is sort of [my] intellectual side and one is sort of the athletic side.” In this case, the photos functioned on multiple levels: To communicate physical characteristics, but also self-concept (the aspects of self he was most proud of), and as an attempt to provide evidence for his discursive claims (his profile listed an advanced degree and an athletic physique).

To summarize, our data suggest that participants were cognizant of the online setting and its association with deceptive communication practices, and therefore worked to present themselves as credible. In doing so, they drew upon the rules they had developed for assessing others and turned these practices into guidelines for their own self-presentational messages.

The primary goal of the online dating participants interviewed for this study was to find someone with whom they could establish a dating relationship (although desired commitment level and type of relationship varied across participants). Given this, they attempted to achieve their goals while contending with the unique characteristics of the online environment, engaging in strategies designed to circumvent the constraints of the online dating environment while exploiting its capacities. One constraint—the lack of nonverbal cues—meant that the task of interpreting the remaining cues became paramount in regards to both assessment of others and presentation of self. Since the goal of most online dating participants was to identify and interact with potential romantic partners, individuals strove to highlight their positive attributes and capitalize on the greater perceived control over self-presentation inherent in the medium. However, the future face-to-face interaction they anticipated meant that individuals had to balance their desire for self-promotion with their need for accurate self-presentation. In response to the risk of misrepresentation online, made possible by the selective self-presentation affordances of CMC, participants adopted various strategies to demonstrate the credibility of their identity claims, recursively applying the same techniques they employed to uncover representational ruses in others. Our findings suggest that participants consistently engaged in creative workarounds (circumvention strategies) as they went through the process of posting a profile, selecting individuals to contact, and communicating with potential romantic partners. Our data also highlight the recursive process by which some participants constructed rules of thumb for assessing others (e.g., an inactive account indicates a lack of availability or interest) while simultaneously incorporating these rules in their own messages (e.g., frequently making slight adjustments to the profile).

Theoretical Implications

As individuals make initial decisions about potential partners, they form impressions that help reduce uncertainty about the other ( Berger & Calabrese, 1975 ). For this to happen in the context of CMC, SIP argues, individuals will adapt their behaviors to the cues that are available ( Tidwell & Walther, 2002; Walther, 1992 ) to convey information to one another. While empirical support for SIP has been demonstrated (see Walther & Parks, 2002 for a review), this article is among the few to provide evidence for SIP in a naturalistic setting. Our data show that in the initial interactions of online dating participants, stylistic aspects of messages such as timing, length, and grammar appear equally as important as the content of the message itself; this is consistent with SIP’s formulation that when nonverbal cues are decreased, the remaining cues become more salient to users. Previous laboratory studies of SIP have tended to focus on the manipulation of a subset of cues. A unique contribution of this study’s extension of SIP is its demonstration of the organic interplay of these alternative sources of social information online.

Although much of the public debate about online dating has centered on the medium’s inability to ensure participants’ truthful self-descriptions, our interview data suggest that the notion that people frequently, explicitly, and intentionally “lie” online is simplistic and inaccurate. Exploring the question of whether participants created a playful or fantastical identity online ( Stone, 1996 ; Turkle, 1995 ) or were more open and honest ( Rubin, 1975 ), we found that the online dating participants we spoke with claimed that they attempted to present an accurate self-representation online, a finding echoed in our survey data ( Gibbs et al., 2006 ). This study highlights the fact that creating an accurate online representation of self in this context is a complex and evolving process in which participants attempt to attract desirable partners while contending with constraints such as those posed by technological design and the limits of self-knowledge.

In some cases, the technical constraints of the site may have unintentionally enabled acts of misrepresentation, for instance when participants slightly altered information in situations in which they felt an arbitrary data point (in age, for example) would significantly harm their chances of being discovered by a potential mate. Additionally, self-reported descriptions that use subjective terms (e.g., “pretty” or “average”) could also result in unintentional misrepresentation due to different interpretations of these terms. Additionally, as Shah and Kesan point out, “Defaults have a legitimating effect, because they carry information about what most people are expected to do” (2003, p. 7). In the case of online dating, it may be that the default settings in the search field (i.e., an age range, whether searches are limited to profiles with photographs) influence user perceptions of the desirability or appropriateness of certain responses.

Additionally, our interview data suggest that online representations of one’s ideal self—when combined with the increased accountability engendered by an anticipated face-to-face interaction—may serve as a tool to enable individuals to minimize the discrepancy between their actual and their ideal selves. The ideal self refers to qualities or achievements one strives to possess in the future ( Bargh et al., 2002 ). In the realm of online dating, it is interesting that participants reported using the profile to ideate a version of self they desired to experience in the future. For some, the act of constructing an online profile may begin a process of self-growth as they strive to close the gap between actual and ideal self, such as the woman who misrepresented her weight but then was able to achieve her goal of weight loss over time. Future research is needed to assess the extent to which this phenomenon exists and its long-term consequences for processes of self-growth.

More research is also needed to understand fully whether strategies designed to circumvent constraints (technical or other) are perceived to be deceptive by users and, if so, which norms govern their use. The literature on deception explores a wide range of deceptive acts, ranging from the more mundane “diversionary responses” to outright “lies” ( Buller & Burgoon, 1994 ). Future research could work to develop a taxonomy of online deception and acceptability, which takes into account the nuances of social norms and the fact that some misrepresentation may be unintentional or socially accepted. For instance, if a profile includes incorrect information that is rectified immediately over email, is it a “lie?” More importantly, is it acceptable? Also, more research is needed to understand more clearly the extent and substance of participants’ actual concerns regarding online dating (i.e., misrepresentation, effectiveness, safety) and how they overlap with the often sensationalized discourse about online deception as represented in media accounts and social narratives.

Practical Implications

Given that deceptive practices are a concern for online dating participants, future research should explore the ways in which online dating sites could implement design features aimed at addressing these issues. For instance, they could acknowledge and incorporate aspects of a shared social context, similar to social networking sites like Friendster ( Donath & boyd, 2004 ), through the use of testimonials or social network visualizations. Online dating sites could adopt some of the design features used in e-commerce sites, such as testimonials, user rating systems, or social network visualizations, where participants also must operate in an uncertain environment in which warranting is difficult and deception can be costly ( Resnick & Zeckhauser, 2002 ).

A second design consideration is the possibility that the technical characteristics of some online dating sites may privilege objective characteristics (such as demographic features) and de-emphasize the process of seeing others as individuals rather than as amalgams of various traits. The benefit, or capacity, of online dating is that participants can use specific search parameters to cull a subset of profiles from a larger database. Participants acknowledged that the online dating environment placed more emphasis on certain kinds of information—information that might not be very important in a face-to-face setting when chemistry was already established. To compensate for or to circumvent these constraints, participants tried to create profiles that stood out or evidenced aspects of self that they were particularly proud of rather than a laundry list of features. They struggled to present themselves as unique individuals within the constraints of a technical system that encouraged homogeneity, negotiating a desire to stand out with the need to blend in. Future research might examine the potential for developing self-presentation tools that allow individuals more nuanced ways of expressing themselves in the online environment, such as video presentations, more sophisticated communication tools, or triangulated information from others on the site. Online dating sites may need to reconsider the ways in which profiles are structured and the characteristics they include; as Fiore and Donath argue, “the features of a person that Match.com presents as salient to romance will begin to have some psychological and cultural influences if 40 million Americans view them every month” (2004, p. 1395). If we accept this claim, then it stands to reason that participants’ visions of self may be impacted by their online self-presentations, especially if these presentations are constrained.

Limitations

We chose to conduct interviews with online dating participants in order to gain insight into how they perceived their experiences and the processes through which they learned to avoid the pitfalls and exploit the possibilities of online dating. However, there are several limitations that should be acknowledged in our method and sample. Limitations of this study include the sampling of only participants located on the West Coast. While Connect.com members are worldwide, we cannot assess if regional or national differences affect the online dating experience. A major limitation is the potential for self-selection bias, as participants volunteered for the study. While demographically diverse, those that chose to volunteer might be biased toward a more positive outlook on online dating or potentially more honest in their online dating practices.

In addition, the self-reported nature of the data may have resulted in a social desirability bias, making participants less likely to admit to intentional misrepresentation. Finally, many of our findings may be specific to Connect.com ’s model of online dating, in which participants post profiles and select with whom they want to communicate. Other online dating sites, such as eHarmony, utilize a very different model, acting as online matchmakers where individuals who are found to be compatible are paired based on personality tests developed by “expert” psychologists. Future research could assess whether variables like self-efficacy predict which model users choose to utilize. Although our observations in this article were based on the sample as a whole, we acknowledge that there may be differences (for instance, along gender lines) which are beyond the scope of this article but which could be explored in future research.

Although self-presentation and relationship formation have been studied in other online contexts, tracing how these processes take place in the online dating realm offers researchers unique insights into the crucial role of circumvention techniques, the complicated nature of “honesty” in online environments, and the social and psychological implications of the design and structure of these sites. From a historical perspective, the goals of online dating participants are not that different from those described by poets throughout the ages. What is different is the tools in their repertoire and the constraints and opportunities they present. As O’Sullivan writes, “From a functional perspective, it appears new technologies may be providing nothing terribly new— just new ways of doing things that people have been doing throughout the history of social interaction” (2000, p. 428). This study has attempted to elucidate and explain some of these social practices as a window into the ways in which new communication technologies are shaping us—and we are shaping them—in the ongoing pursuit of romantic relationships.

The authors thank Karen Aroian, Ulla Bunz, Annika Hylmo, Edythe Hough, Patrick O’Sullivan, Charles Steinfield, Joe Walther, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions regarding this manuscript.

Similar to the concept of “workaround” employed by designers and software engineers, users engage in circumvention strategies to neutralize constraints—or turn them into capabilities. Prior CMC research has identified similar processes in interpersonal contexts. For instance, O’Sullivan (2000) found that users chose mediated channels over face-to-face communication in situations where a preferred impression was expected to be violated in order to capitalize on the face-saving capabilities of mediated interaction. Similarly, CMC researchers working in other contexts have noted the process by which individuals adapt their behavior to compensate for the limitations imposed by the medium in order to pursue their communication goals ( Walther, Loh, & Granka, 2005 ).

All identifying information about our participants has been changed to protect their confidentiality, although we have attempted to use pseudonyms that reflect the tone and spirit of their chosen screen names. Additionally, at the request of our research site, we have used a pseudonym in place of the site’s actual name.

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Nicole Ellison is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Telecommunications, Information Studies, and Media at Michigan State University. Her research explores issues of self-presentation, relationship development, and identity in online environments such as weblogs, online dating sites, and social networking services.

Address: Dept. of Telecommunications, Information Studies, and Media, Michigan State University, 403 Communication Arts and Sciences, East Lansing, MI 48824 USA

Rebecca Heino is an Assistant Professor in the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. She has centered her research on the use of communication technologies—such as intranets and email—in organizations, specifically focusing on organizational adoption, implementation, and privacy.

Address: Georgetown University, McDonough School of Business, 37th & O St. NW, Old North G-04, Washington, DC 20057 USA

Jennifer Gibbs is an Assistant Professor of Communication at Rutgers University. Her research interests center around how individuals connect, collaborate, and negotiate identity and differences in global, multicultural, and mediated contexts.

Address: Department of Communication, SCILS, 4 Huntington Street, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1071 USA

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Female Self-presentation through Online Dating Applications

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Abstract

Online self-presentation plays a vital role in online dating applications due to online filtering and contacting the desirable potential partners through presentational clues. Applying qualitative data collected from young female participants and the theoretical Two-Component Model of Leary & Kowalski (1990) on the motivation process and construction process, this paper presents an overview of a study based on the comprehension of participants’ motivation process for dating profiles to explore the construction process of online dating self-presentational approaches. The results indicate that through the self-presentational clues of photography, text, and video display for constructing online dating profiles, young women can selectively and strategically demonstrate the partial and ornamental self with physical and ideological attractiveness. Simultaneously, they struggle with their ideal and real self in the process of online dating self-presentation.

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Home > COMJOURNAL > Vol. 3 (2016)

Singles Looking to Mingle: An Analysis of Self-Presentation in Online Dating

Leigha Jacobson , Concordia University, Saint Paul Abbey Atkinson , Concordia University, Saint Paul Ladan Mohamed , Concordia University, Saint Paul Jason Dorr , Concordia University, Saint Paul

Faculty Mentor

Dr. Kim Flottemesch

Online dating has become a commonplace in today’s society as more people are turning to it more than ever before. Because this type of dating has become so widely accepted, the researchers felt it was necessary to take a deeper look into self-presentation in online dating and how people choose to represent themselves. Participants of this study include single men and women, between the ages of 18-35, from a large Midwestern metro area in the United States. The purpose of this study was to gain information as to how men and women choose to represent themselves on online dating platforms. The key areas that were chosen to be further explored in the analysis include: the information participants chose to share about themselves, types of photos they used to represent themselves, expressions of desiring physical relationships and each gender’s use of deception. Ultimately, the data suggests that there were clear discrepancies between the information that men and women shared about themselves in their bios, versus what they disclosed to the researchers in questions asked.

https://doi.org/10.54416/ZFWV7152

Recommended Citation

Jacobson, Leigha; Atkinson, Abbey; Mohamed, Ladan; and Dorr, Jason (2016) "Singles Looking to Mingle: An Analysis of Self-Presentation in Online Dating," Concordia Journal of Communication Research : Vol. 3, Article 1. DOI: https://doi.org/10.54416/ZFWV7152 Available at: https://digitalcommons.csp.edu/comjournal/vol3/iss1/1

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Self-Presentation in Online Dating – An Analysis of Behavioural Diversity

Proceedings of the 20th Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS 2016, nominated for Best Paper Award)

16 Pages Posted: 12 Oct 2016

Martin Haferkorn

Goethe University Frankfurt Faculty of Economics and Business Administration; European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA)

Moritz Christian Weber

Goethe University Frankfurt Faculty of Economics and Business Administration

Date Written: October 11, 2016

Human communication experiences a major shift towards virtual interactions and social networks. These virtual environments enable users to present themselves to a virtual audience. In this paper we analyze a unique online dating data set from a mobile application, which allows observing the user’s diversity in terms of gender and sexual orientation and their individual and environmental influences. Based on the research streams on impression management, online dating, diversity of gender and sexual orientation we derive hypotheses on similarity and differences in the group behavior. We also analyze how deviations from the group mean behaviors affect the level of self-presentation. Our results give indication that gender research requires a more diverse perspective when analyzing male and female behavior. We find first evidence that deviations from group behavior is emotionally related to the user’s self-presentation, contrary to this the information content shared with other users seems not to be affected. Our results further indicate that individual and environmental influences have an effect on the amount of shared information as well as the emotional level of self-presentation.

Keywords: Impression Management, Online Dating, Sexual Orientation, Dating Platform

JEL Classification: Z10

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Martin Haferkorn (Contact Author)

Goethe university frankfurt faculty of economics and business administration ( email ).

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European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) ( email )

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The Dating-App Diversity Paradox

Online dating can be alienating and exasperating; it could also lead to a more integrated world.

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If you ask an adult—particularly an older one—how they found their significant other, you’re fairly likely to hear about a time-honored ritual: the setup. Somewhere along the line, a mutual connection might have thought: Aren’t X and Y both weirdly into Steely Dan? Or: My two sweetest friends! Or perhaps just: They’re each single. The amateur cupid made the introduction, stepped back, and watched as they fell in love.

If you ask a single 20-something how they’re looking for a partner, you’re fairly likely to hear a weary sigh. The apps, of course. The swiping has been interminable; the chats have been boring, the first dates awkward, and the ghosting—well, it still stings. They might be wondering: Does no one know a marginally interesting, normal-enough person who wants to get to know me?

Once, American couples most commonly met through friends or family; now they’re most likely to meet online. Yet, despite the apps’ popularity, roughly half of users —and more than half of women—say their experience on them has been negative. Many today long for the setup. They imagine an era when couples were tailor-made by the people they cherished; when shared peers would hold creepy or flaky dates accountable; when a new partner would fit seamlessly into their social life.

Read: ‘Nostalgia for a dating experience they’ve never had’

But there’s one major problem with that vision: Dating people your friends or family know usually means dating people demographically similar to you—and that can lead to an ever more segregated society. “How couples meet ends up being this incredibly primary battlefield to the reinforcement of a distinction of racial, ethnic, and social class groups,” Reuben Thomas, a sociologist at the University of New Mexico, told me. As isolating as apps can be, they are “a huge threat to those boundaries.” They might link you to someone you otherwise never would have met—and allow the two of you to establish your own relationship norms, free from outside judgment. Pair by pair, they could create a more integrated and equitable world.

Recently, Americans have been intrigued by matchmaking. The Netflix shows Indian Matchmaking and Jewish Matchmaking were hits; contemporary matching services are proliferating. But Thomas, who studies social networks and homogeneity, hopes people won’t forget what the practice was historically about in many cultures: ensuring that someone ended up with a racially and economically appropriate partner. “You can think of matchmakers traditionally as agents of maintaining caste boundaries,” he told me. Women, particularly, tended to have little power to challenge decisions made for them by their family or church. One might end up with a man decades older just because of his wealth, Jennifer Lundquist, a University of Massachusetts at Amherst sociologist, told me.

Setups are, in a sense, matchmaking’s modern equivalent. They aren’t typically meant to pair people who are demographically suitable, but society is highly segregated. Friend groups that are diverse in one way usually aren’t in others, Thomas told me; think of a racially varied bunch of college friends, all getting degrees. Any two people from the same social bubble will probably be pretty homogeneous. And they might end up pushed together by mutual connections who love the idea of their pals hitting it off.

Read: The new old dating trend

Studies suggest that couples who meet online, alternatively, are more likely to cut across race, education, and religious boundaries. That’s not to say that romantic relationships—online or off—are totally integrated by any of those measures. When it comes to interracial marriages in the United States, for example, Lundquist told me that “if you were to just sort of put everyone in a bag and randomly assort everyone, the rates of interracial pairings would be three to five times higher than what they actually are.” But such unions are more common than they used to be. When the Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia legalized interracial marriage in 1967, interracial couples made up 3 percent of the country’s newlyweds; now they’re up to nearly 20 percent — with spikes not long after the introduction of Match.com in 1995 and Tinder in 2012.

Dating apps still have a major bias problem. In 2014, OkCupid analyzed data from a feature that let people rate potential matches and found that Asian men and Black women and men received lower rankings than any other groups; a 2024 study found that Black Tinder users received fewer likes than white users did. Apps can allow people to efficiently weed out those who are different from them, Lundquist explained. Some, emboldened by the anonymity, use filters to avoid seeing anyone of, say, a certain race. Many have unconscious prejudices shaping whom they swipe right on. Lundquist told me that wading through so many options can lead people to rely on quick judgments—stereotypes, essentially—that they wouldn’t when getting to know someone in person. And research suggests that app algorithms, which aren’t fully public, tend to match users largely based on shared qualities.

But at least on dating apps people have a better chance of encountering others who are different from them. “Very few people have truly diverse networks that really match the kind of diversity you would see” on a dating site like Hinge or Match, Thomas said. Luke Brunning, a lecturer at the University of Leeds, in the U.K., and a leader of the Ethical Dating Online research group, compared it to the integration of physical spaces: You can’t make people from different backgrounds want to hang out, but you can work to remove barriers. “Having people taking the same forms of public transport and using the same parks or the same swimming pools, same public facilities,” he told me, “it’s not going to integrate society overnight. But it will have a kind of gradual positive impact that it definitely wouldn’t have if things were different.” Indeed, a model made by the researchers Josue Ortega and Philipp Hergovich predicted that just exposing people of different races to one another leads to more interracial marriages.

Diversity isn’t just good for society; it can be good for individuals and for couples, too. In plenty of studies, participants mention enjoying the “opening of social possibilities” that the apps bring, Gina Potarca, a lecturer at the University of Liverpool, in the U.K., told me. Some research has suggested that divorce rates are lower among spouses with similar backgrounds. But that idea is contested . And if pairs from different cultures do struggle more, that’s likely in part because society doesn’t always celebrate them, which might not be the case if such relationships were more common, Lundquist pointed out. They’d still probably have more differences to navigate—but people should learn how to do that anyway.

As much as familiarity can be comforting, moving away from it can also be freeing, especially for women. Potarca told me that on the apps, women seem to be “a little bit more assertive with what they look for.” Her research has found that married couples in Germany and Japan who met online divide housework more equitably, on average, than those who met other ways. She thinks this is related to earlier studies that have shown the same among couples who live farther from family. In both cases, it seems, distance from their communities’ expectations lets couples make their own rules.

Dating apps, however potentially disruptive for society, are often alienating for individuals. They leave people to make decisions by themselves, which can be more stressful than empowering. They require people to trust that total strangers will be safe and respectful, and to deal with the ones who aren’t. (Disturbingly, Columbia Journalism Investigations found that more than a third of women surveyed had been sexually assaulted by someone they met on an online dating site; the BBC found that a third had experienced harassment or abuse through a dating app.) They encourage people to choose between other human beings as if playing a game. Users relinquish the support and intimacy of a collective search for love in order to find someone outside their own bubble. But why can’t they have both?

Some people are trying to. Tamar, the daughter of a couple acquainted with my mother, told me that she was on the apps for years without finding a long-term partner. She’d also tried casually asking friends to set her up, but the answer was always the same: Everyone I know is taken or You’re too good for this person. Around her 30th birthday, Tamar (who asked to be identified only by her first name, to speak candidly about her personal life) felt a renewed motivation to meet someone. She’d heard of a friend of a friend writing a mass email asking to be set up, so she decided to devise her own—to old housemates, friends, family, family friends—and encouraged them to “send it near and far. Let’s cast the net quite wide,” she told me. She got a bunch of responses and went on a few dates that didn’t work out, but this time she didn’t feel so discouraged. “ This is a person who means something to someone who means something to me ,” she remembers thinking. Months later, a family friend reached out to say he knew someone in her city with a matchmaking hobby; that person ended up introducing Tamar to her husband’s friend. Now Tamar and that friend are married.

Her email most likely didn’t reach a particularly diverse pool. Tamar suspects that it went to a lot of highly educated Jewish people, like her; her family recently found a photo of Tamar’s parents dancing in a group with her now-husband at a wedding, neither party knowing the other, taken a year before he and Tamar met. But I wonder if the method is a step in the right direction—a way to throw the stone a little farther while still enlisting loved ones to help. “It was cool to think that there were people all over,” she told me, “wanting me to find my person.” Compared with her experience online dating, “that’s a lot less lonely.”

Some larger-scale attempts to combine range with community exist too. In 2023, Tinder launched an option that lets people’s friends and family browse and recommend profiles without logging into an account themselves. “The feature makes modern dating a team sport,” according to the company’s press release. It also runs into an issue Thomas warned of: Your team might inadvertently keep pulling the same kinds of people from the bench, even if you would have been more open-minded. Other efforts seemed ill-conceived and probably unhelpful. The dating site MySingleFriend lets your friends write your profile—but you’re on your own for whatever comes next. A colleague told me she’d once been added to a Facebook group called “ Are We Dating the Same Guy? ,” which is exactly what it sounds like. “For the most part it was women posting screenshots of men on dating apps and being like, ‘Anyone know him?’ and then crickets,” she told me. And of course, any vetting of strangers that does happen is done by yet more strangers.

Ultimately, integrating the people close to you into your romantic life might just need to happen after a first date. Perhaps you bring a new prospect to a party early on, or introduce them to your family when the relationship still feels relatively casual. (If anyone doesn’t seem to love your pick yet, remember: They just met the person.) Maybe you make a point to hang out with your new interest’s group, even if you don’t feel like you fit in. After a while, you might get invited to events you never would have before, with people you’ve grown fond of; your friends might get to know their friends too. You’re still part of a larger community—but a new one. And the two of you are building it together.

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