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Romance in the digital date:Modern love

电子交友爱情：现代爱情

Online dating

线上交友

Modern love

现代爱情

The internet has transformed the search for love and partnership

互联网已经改变了寻找爱情和伙伴的方式。

Aug 18th 2018

THE internet has transformed the way people work and communicate. It has upended industries, from entertainment to retailing. But its most profound effect may well be on the biggest decision that most people make—choosing a mate.

互联网改变了人类工作与交流的方式。它颠覆了各个行业，从娱乐业到零售业。但是影响最深的可能是人们在对象的选择决策方面。

upend:

In the early 1990s the notion of meeting a partner online seemed freakish, and not a little pathetic. Today, in many places, it is normal. Smartphones have put virtual bars in people’s pockets, where singletons can mingle free from the constraints of social or physical geography. Globally, at least 200m people use digital dating services every month. In America more than a third of marriages now start with an online match-up. The internet is the second-most-popular way for Americans to meet people of the opposite sex, and is fast catching up with real-world “friend of a friend” introductions.

1990年早期, 见网友被认为是反常的行为，一点也不悲哀。如今，在很多地方都是正常行为。智能手机将虚拟酒吧放入口袋之中，人们可以在里面不受社会或地域的限制自由交往。全球每月至少有2亿人口使用电子约会服务。目前，在美国超过1/3的婚姻是由线上配对开始的。互联网是美国人找异性第二大受欢迎的方式， 正迅速追赶上现实世界中朋友介绍的方式。

Digital dating is a massive social experiment, conducted on one of humanity’s most intimate and vital processes. Its effects are only just starting to become visible (see Briefing).

数字约会是一个大型社会实验，针对人性最亲密和重要的过程之一。它的影响仅仅正开始显现。

When Harry clicked on Sally

当哈利遇上萨利

Meeting a mate over the internet is fundamentally different from meeting one offline. In the physical world, partners are found in family networks or among circles of friends and colleagues. Meeting a friend of a friend is the norm. People who meet online are overwhelmingly likely to be strangers. As a result, dating digitally offers much greater choice. A bar, choir or office might have a few tens of potential partners for any one person. Online there are tens of thousands.

通过互联网会面对象与线下会面对象有着本质的不同。在现实生活中，双方通过家庭关系或朋友圈和同时是认识。一般就是朋友的朋友而认识。线上认识的人极大可能都是陌生人。因此， 数字约会提供了很大的选择余地。在酒吧，唱诗班或办公室，一个人可能会有几十潜在对象，线上则是成千上万。

This greater choice—plus the fact that digital connections are made only with mutual consent—makes the digital dating market far more efficient than the offline kind. For some, that is bad news. Because of the gulf in pickiness between the sexes, a few straight men are doomed never to get any matches at all. On Tantan, a Chinese app, men express interest in 60% of women they see, but women are interested in just 6% of men; this dynamic means that 5% of men never receive a match. In offline dating, with a much smaller pool of men to fish from, straight women are more likely to couple up with men who would not get a look-in online.

更大的选择余地加上网络关系的建立是基于双方认同，这使得数字约会市场比线下类更高效。对于一些人来说，这是坏消息。因为男女之间的挑剔裂口，一些直男注定找不到对象。在中国的应用程序探探上， 男性对他们看过的60%女性有兴趣，但是女性感兴趣的男性只有6%。这种互动情况意味着有5%的男性从未遇到匹配对象。线下约会， 可选的男性范围大大缩小，直女更容易与在线上没有找到匹配对象的男性进行配对。

For most people, however, digital dating offers better outcomes. Research has found that marriages in America between people who meet online are likely to last longer; such couples profess to be happier than those who met offline. The whiff of moral panic surrounding dating apps is vastly overblown. Precious little evidence exists to show that opportunities online are encouraging infidelity. In America, divorce rates climbed until just before the advent of the internet, and have fallen since.

whiff:~ (of sth) a slight sign or feeling of sth

   轻微的迹象(或感觉)；一点点；些许:

a whiff of danger

   一点点危险

对大部分人来说，数字约会更有成效。研究发现，在美国通过线上认识而结婚的夫妻关系更持久， 一些夫妻宣称他们比线下认识的夫妻更幸福。围绕约会app的道德恐慌有些过于夸张了。极少部分的证据显示线上活动促进了不忠行为。在美国，互联网出现之前离婚率攀升，之后反而有所下降。

Online dating is a particular boon for those with very particular requirements. Jdate allows daters to filter out matches who would not consider converting to Judaism, for instance. A vastly bigger market has had dramatic results for same-sex daters in particular. In America, 70% of gay people meet their partners online. This searchable spectrum of sexual diversity is a boon: more people can find the intimacy they seek.

线上约会对有特定需求的人来说有益处的。 例如，Jdate允许用户过滤掉不考虑加入犹太教的配对对象。对同性恋者来说，广大的市场有着出乎意料的结果。在美国， 70%男同性恋通过线上认识对象。性取向多样性的搜索范围的益处：更多的人能够找到他们的亲密对象。

There are problems with the modern way of love, however. Many users complain of stress when confronted with the brutal realities of the digital meat market, and their place within it. Negative emotions about body image existed before the internet, but they are amplified when strangers can issue snap judgments on attractiveness. Digital dating has been linked to depression. The same problems that afflict other digital platforms recur in this realm, from scams to fake accounts: 10% of all newly created dating profiles do not belong to real people.

但是，现代人的恋爱方式存在一些问题。许多用户抱怨电子肉体市场所面临的的残酷现实，以及他们在其中所处的位置。对身材形象的负面情绪在互联网出之前就存在，在陌生对个体吸引力作出评价时会被放大。数字约会和抑郁症有联系。同样的问题在其他电子平台也反复出现，从欺骗到虚假账户：有近10%的新建账户资料不是真实的用户资料。

This new world of romance may also have unintended consequences for society. The fact that online daters have so much more choice can break down barriers: evidence suggests that the internet is boosting interracial marriages by bypassing homogenous social groups. But daters are also more able to choose partners like themselves. Assortative mating, the process whereby people with similar education levels and incomes pair up, already shoulders some of the blame for income inequality. Online dating may make the effect more pronounced: education levels are displayed prominently on dating profiles in a way they would never be offline. It is not hard to imagine dating services of the future matching people by preferred traits, as determined by uploaded genomes. Dating firms also suffer from an inherent conflict of interest. Perfect matching would leave them bereft of paying customers.

新世界的爱情可能给社会带来一些预料之外到的一些影响。线上约会人员可拥有更多的选择来突破既定的障碍：证据显示互联网促进了不同种族通婚，跨越了同种族的社会群体。但是约会人员更可能会遇到与他们相似的对象。类似教育和收入背景的选择性的配对已经引起了收入不均衡的指责。线上约会可能会导致结果更突出：教育水平在个人资料介绍里有着突出的显示。不难想象将来的约会服务将按照，人们会按照上传的基因组所决定的性格特征进行匹配。约会平台公司也存在内部利益冲突。完美配对可能会减少付费的客户人数。

The domination of online dating by a handful of firms and their algorithms is another source of worry. Dating apps do not benefit from exactly the same sort of network effects as other tech platforms: a person’s friends do not need to be on a specific dating site, for example. But the feedback loop between large pools of data, generated by ever-growing numbers of users attracted to an ever-improving product, still exists. The entry into the market of Facebook, armed with data from its 2.2bn users, will provide clues as to whether online dating will inexorably consolidate into fewer, larger platforms.

另外一个担心是来自仅由几个线上约会系统公司和他们算法。约会应用程序和其他技术平台的网络效应的获益不尽相同：比如，一个人的朋友们不需要在一个特定的约会网站注册。

While you were swiping

But even if the market does not become ever more concentrated, the process of coupling (or not) has unquestionably become more centralised. Romance used to be a distributed activity which took place in a profusion of bars, clubs, churches and offices; now enormous numbers of people rely on a few companies to meet their mate. That hands a small number of coders, tweaking the algorithms that determine who sees whom across the virtual bar, tremendous power to engineer mating outcomes. In authoritarian societies especially, the prospect of algorithmically arranged marriages ought to cause some disquiet. Competition offers some protection against such a possibility; so too might greater transparency over the principles used by dating apps to match people up.

但是即使市场不集中化，配对过程毫无疑问也会变得更加中心化。爱情网

Yet such concerns should not obscure the good that comes from the modern way of romance. The right partners can elevate and nourish each other. The wrong ones can ruin both their lives. Digital dating offers millions of people a more efficient way to find a good mate. That is something to love.