As a rule, people used to meet their soulmate among their closest acquaintances, through friends, relatives or colleagues. Dating sites have changed this tradition, giving us a chance to meet a person from any corner of the planet.

Today, the Internet is the second most popular way of dating among heterosexual couples and the first among same-sex couples.

The graph clearly shows how the Internet has affected the lives of modern generations.

Research of scientists in the field of Internet dating
Scientists Jose Ortega (Josue Ortega) from the University of Essex and Philipp Hergovich (Philipp Hergovich) from the University of Vienna are investigating how this has affected racial diversity in society. "We have an important task ahead of us — to understand the process of the emergence of international marriages, since they act as a measure of social distance between different groups of people," Ortega and Ergovich say.

They constructed a model of society in which men and women of different nationalities could choose a partner only among those with whom they have a connection. Such a society is characterized by a low level of interethnic marriages. However, another model, in which scientists established connections between people from different ethnic groups, showed that the level of international marriages has increased dramatically.

"Our model predicts almost complete racial integration due to the appearance of dating sites, even if a person has met not so many potential partners thanks to them," the scientists say. According to them, the model also proves that marriages that took place as a result of online dating are much stronger.

Among couples who met online, there is a lower divorce rate compared to those couples who met in the traditional way.

The researchers then compared the results of studies of their models of society with the observed growth rates of international marriages in the United States. In some parts of the country, the mixing of nationalities was prohibited until 1967. However, with the advent of dating sites in 1995, such as Match.com, the number of interracial marriages has increased significantly.

The growth rate increased even more in the 2000s, when online dating began to gain huge popularity. The next jump occurred in 2014. Most likely, this was influenced by the appearance of the popular online dating app Tinder, which is used by more than 50 million people and thanks to which more than 12 million acquaintances occur per day.

Thus, scientists have come to the conclusion that online dating has become the main factor in the increase in the number of international marriages.