Internet Initiated Relationships: Associations Between Age and Involvement in Online Dating

We used data from an online survey (N = 175) about Internet romance to explore the possibility that age might be associated with variation in people's perceptions of and experiences with online personals ads and Internet dating sites. Results suggest that involvement in online dating may increase rather than decrease with age and that older adults may turn to online dating in part as a response to diminishing satisfaction with and use of more conventional ways of establishing romances. Age was also unrelated to proxy measures of the stigma associated with online dating (i.e., whether respondents had told others they date online, mean rated favorability of responses to such disclosure). Possible explanations for and implications of these findings are discussed.