From the Chicago Tribune
Online dating grows, sheds stigma
By Wailin Wong
Jay and Christina Lorance first met in an MSN chat room in May 1996, when the Internet, or even the idea of communicating electronically with a stranger, was an unfamiliar concept to many Americans....
Digital culture has changed drastically since the Lorances' first virtual meeting. Online dating is now an accepted and commonplace way to meet someone, having largely shed its stigma as an option for only socially stunted nerds. Match.com, one of the leading Web sites, celebrated its 15th anniversary in April....
A 2006 study by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project reported that nearly 7 million American adults have gone out with someone they met online. That number surely has gone up since, said Andrew Fiore, a doctoral candidate at the University of California at Berkeley [School of Information] who has studied online dating since 2003.
"As soon as you talk about 7 million people going on dates, they can't possibly all be computer geeks," Fiore said. "If you look at the demographics, people using online dating look a lot like people who are on the Internet in general."
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