Purchase
Love In The Time Of Algorithms
Dan Slater
What Technology Does to Meeting and Mating
Current
February 2013
On Sale: January 24, 2013
255 pages
ISBN: 1591845319
EAN: 9781591845317
Kindle: B008EKMDWG
Hardcover / e-Book
Add to Wish List
Non-Fiction | Self-Help
"If online dating can blunt the emotional pain of
separation, if adults can afford to be increasingly
demanding about what they want from a relationship, the
effect of online dating seems positive. But what if it's
also the case that the prospect of finding an ever more
compatible mate with the click of a mouse means a future of
relationship instability, a paradox of choice that keeps us
chasing the illusive bunny around the dating track?" It's the mother of all search problems: how to find a
spouse, a mate, a date. The escalating marriage age and
declining marriage rate mean we're spending a greater
portion of our lives unattached, searching for love well
into our thirties and forties. It's no wonder that a third of America's 90 million singles
are turning to dating Web sites. Once considered the realm
of the lonely and desperate, sites like eHarmony, Match,
OkCupid, and Plenty of Fish have been embraced by pretty
much every demographic. Thanks to the increasingly efficient
algorithms that power these sites, dating has been
transformed from a daunting transaction based on scarcity to
one in which the possibilities are almost endless. Now
anyone—young, old, straight, gay, and even
married—can search for exactly what they want, connect
with more people, and get more information about those
people than ever before. As journalist Dan Slater shows, online dating is changing
society in more profound ways than we imagine. He explores
how these new technologies, by altering our perception of
what's possible, are reconditioning our feelings about
commitment and challenging the traditional paradigm of adult
life. Like the sexual revolution of the 1960s and '70s, the
digital revolution is forcing us to ask new questions about
what constitutes "normal": Why should we settle for someone
who falls short of our expectations if there are thousands
of other options just a click away? Can commitment thrive in
a world of unlimited choice? Can chemistry really be
quantified by math geeks? As one of Slater's subjects
wonders, "What's the etiquette here?" Blending history, psychology, and interviews with site
creators and users, Slater takes readers behind the scenes
of a fascinating business. Dating sites capitalize on our
quest for love, but how do their creators' ideas about
profits, morality, and the nature of desire shape the
virtual worlds they've created for us? Should we trust an
industry whose revenue model benefits from our avoiding
monogamy? Documenting the untold story of the online-dating industry's
rise from ignominy to ubiquity—beginning with its
early days as "computer dating" at Harvard in
1965—Slater offers a lively, entertaining, and thought
provoking account of how we have, for better and worse,
embraced technology in the most intimate aspect of our lives.
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
| 
© 2003-2024 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy