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-- By
BrettJohnson - 24 Dec 2009
Introduction
This essay posits that because there is an abundance of readily available alternatives
created by the condition of the internet, people are more likely to replace current choices than where alternatives are not readily available. This analysis could be applicable to any subject matter where one choice is mutually exclusive with other choices. As discussed below, this replacement thus may affect replacement of intimate partners as well as the replacement of entertainment choices. While there are undoubtedly differences between how people make entertainment choices and intimate relationship choices; on commonality appears to be that the availability of alternative choices plays a role in this process.
Once again, you begin
from a tautology: alternatives cannot be chosen if they don't
exist. Agreed.
If so, the net result may be a reduction in the number of long-term intimate relationships (defined as a commitment for at least the remainder of the individuals’ natural lives).
Next step: you conclude,
without further intermediate cogitation, that it "may be" (weasel
words designed to make a non-proposition appear to be thoughtful
moderation) that there will be fewer long-term intimate
relationships, because people have more choices. An experiment on
this point has been underway for the last five thousand years, which
you don't mention, consider, or reflect upon: cities. You notice
that rural Wyoming is different from downtown San Francisco, but you
don't ask whether, after the US became a divorcing culture, rural
divorce rates were lower or higher than urban divorce rates, for
example. People have more relationships where there are more people
to relate to. Do they have fewer "long-term" relationships, or even
fewer or less long-lived marriages?
An Extreme Example of a Non-Internet Society
The effect of the internet on personal relationships may be demonstrated by first looking at what occurred in a very non-internet society. I grew up in a tiny town in Wyoming and graduated from high school with eighteen classmates. The closest stoplight was 30 miles away; we had one convenience store/gas station, a church and a post office. The sign entering “town” said “Population 100” but when I returned to visit a few years later it said “Population 200,” which leads me to believe, based on the round numbers, that the census methodology may have been suspect. There was no satellite television and cable was not available. We had a single television station (NBC), and our 19” tube television, adorned with tin-foil antenna, allowed us a fuzzy (black and white in my early years) picture. Competing with the television was one FM radio station and two AM stations. Under those circumstances, we were willing to tolerate poor quality television because it was the only game in town. We would sit loyally through atrocious local commercials, blackouts, and poor quality programming.
Similar to a lack of entertainment choices, my home-town provided a very limited supply of potential dating/marriage partners. Because of a lack of other options, there were many pairings of people who probably did not have a lot in common and would most likely have not even associated with each other had there been other options. Just as we watched poor quality television programming, however, people accepted what was available in the dating/marriage department.
Relationships in an Internet Society
With the internet, we have become a society of instant
gratification as a natural consequence of the number of options that we have at our disposal, resulting in a lack of patience for something/somebody that/who is not currently meeting our needs. With respect to personal relationships, there are websites specifically devoted to meeting and dating,
Match.com,
EHarmony and
Plenty of Fish as well as the social networking sites like
Myspace and
Facebook. After the initial connection—via the internet—or otherwise, there are cell phones, text messages, emails, and IMs.
Commentators have speculated upon the
effect that the internet has on the way in which people meet and begin personal relationships. Some have specifically
suggested that the existence of the internet has made infidelity in relationships more common and have explored the specific type of infidelity, called cyber infidelity. Moreover, “[m]atrimonial lawyers have reported seeing a rise in divorce cases due to the formation of such
Cyberaffairs” See also Quittner, J. (1997, April 4) Divorce Internet Style. Time, p. 72.
Todd
Kendall has written a paper on the effect of the internet on long term relationships and divorce. He notes that “[o]ver the last decade, as home internet access has spread, anecdotal reports of infidelity and divorce associated with the worldwide web have become widespread.”
Id. at 2. Kendall further acknowledges that “in such a[n internet] model, the cost of searching for romantic partners, both before or after marriage, is a crucial parameter, and indeed, it may be argued that the internet has lowered these costs substantially.” Id. However, Kendall argues that the internet provides features that will also have the effect of reducing the divorce rate such as providing better and longer searches for a long-term partner, which ultimately results in better matches. Id. at 4-5. Logically extended, however, this could also mean that the number of long-term relationships will be reduced by the condition of the internet because people will continue their “searches” throughout their entire lives rather than selecting a single individual for a long term relationship. Kendall ultimately concludes that the varying long term effects and ultimate long term consequences of the internet on divorce are less than clear. Id. at 16.
There's no data here.
Obviously, there couldn't have been "anecdotal reports" (another name
for "contemporary folklore") about infidelity and divorce related to
the Web before there was the Web. We don't talk much about
infidelity and divorce related to "moving pictures" much anymore, or
related to automobiles either, because we've come to take them for
granted. Every divorce has a "cause," which of course doesn't mean
that whatever it is "causes" divorce. What causes divorce is
marriage.
I do not disagree with Kendall’s ultimate conclusion that there is not a sufficient amount of information to reach an ultimate conclusion on the effect, if any, of the internet on long term relationships. However, I do tend to agree with the numerous
commentators (Kendall citing commentators but ultimately disagreeing with their conclusions) who have speculated that the most likely effect will be to decrease rather than increase long-term relationships.
In other words, you
don't disagree that there's no basis for a conclusion, but you're
going to reach it anyway.
While
many believe that search costs are an important component in the longevity of relationships Kendall appears to be one of the few who argues that better search ability prior to entering into a relationship provided by the internet increases the success of long term relationships.
Really? As I pointed
out last time, demographers currently report dropping rates of
marital fracture among highly-educated urban couples, and
persistently high rates, above 50%, of marital dissolution among
less-educated less culturally privileged couples. Apparently, if one
likes jumping to silly sociological conclusions on the basis of scant
evidence, more educated searching produces more durable
relationships. Of course, you still haven't addressed the difference
between "relationships" (your ostensible subject) and "marriages,"
which are something else again.
While this factor would admittedly appear to favor longevity it does not seem to be a sufficient advantage to overcome the detrimental effect of reduced search costs for replacing an existing partner. This seems true in part because, based on my own observations of peoples' behavior in my home-town, as well as the observations of others--that often the reason that people stay in relationships is a perceived lack of options rather than the desire to be with that
person. Consequently, the availability of potential new partners to replace an existing partner presented by the internet may decrease the number of long-term relationships.
Maybe it will simply
complete the desertion of monogamy. Perhaps people will accept in
the age of the Net what most couples have implicitly accepted
throughout history, that the seeking of sexual variety (by at least
the dominant sex) is not a particularly sound reason for breaking up
the economic and parenting partnership that is marriage? Why did you
construct the false dichotomy between "more opportunities for
experience" and "fewer long-term relationships"? If two people are
married to one another, and each also has several durable extramarital
involvements, has the number of long-term relationships gone up or
down?
Conclusion
Even if it is correct, however, that the number of long-term relationships will be reduced in the future, this is not to suggest that there will never again be sixty-year long relationships. Undoubtedly, there are connections where both people desire to be together in a monogamous relationship with the same person for their entire lives. However, for better or worse, the condition of the internet society, making relationships easier to replace may cause a reduction in the number of future long-term relationships.
Apparently the criticism
of your original approach made it necessary for you to dig in, rather
than reconsidering more fundamentally, which I think would have been
a better choice. I agree that you removed some, not all, of the
elements that most troubled your colleagues, but what you're left
with is still a fallacy.
We have moved over the
course of this academic year from essays that reflected no legal or
social analysis and included many factually inaccurate and unchecked
statements to essays reflecting almost no legal and social analysis
from which the glaring factual inaccuracies have been removed. This
is progress to be sure, but slight. This essay now depends crucially
on your ability to find someone who dismisses your argument as
unsupported by real evidence, but which you nevertheless use as
authority for the assertion of the very conclusions even your source
rejects. The whole, as I have pointed out, is based on an illogical
association (more marital dissolution equals fewer long-term
relationships) for which there is at least some partially
disconfirming evidence ready to hand. The whole is no more than a
cocktail of techno-hype: the Net being offered solemnly as a cause of
social "degeneracy" as rock music, TV, radio, cheap literature, and
other cultural novelties have been in their time. Did the
comparatively sudden move from a non-divorcing to a divorcing society
after the Korean War reduce the number of "long-term" relationships?
Did the Pill? Could the Net possibly have a larger effect on these
matters than no-fault divorce and effective convenient contraception?