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Has online dating destroyed romance?

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Match.com screenshot
This picture taken on February 9, 2010 in Paris shows the internet homepage of the dating agency website Match.com.
LOIC VENANCE/AFP/Getty Images

On this Valentine's Day, we wanted to take a look at internet romance. Has Facebook, online dating and social media ruined love as we once knew it?

Dan Slater, author of "Love in the Time of Algorithms: What Technology Does to Meeting and Mating," wrote about it for The Atlantic:

The positive aspects of online dating are clear: the Internet makes it easier for single people to meet other single people with whom they might be compatible, raising the bar for what they consider a good relationship. But what if online dating makes it too easy to meet someone new? What if it raises the bar for a good relationship too high? What if the prospect of finding an ever-more-compatible mate with the click of a mouse means a future of relationship instability, in which we keep chasing the elusive rabbit around the dating track?

Slater will join The Daily Circuit Thursday, Feb. 14 to talk about love and online dating. Peter Ludlow, professor of philosophy at Northwestern University, will also join the discussion. He also wrote about internet dating for The Atlantic:

Now I realize that the economic language of frictionless markets isn't very romantic, but the fact is that the dating game is a kind of market whether we want to admit it or not. Finding a partner used to be expensive, and the market was inefficient. If you lived in a large city, there were always people looking for partners, but the problem was how to find them. Pick-up bars were imperfect markets to say the very least. Now you go online, select a partner, and you are immediately dating someone who is at least interested in you. Of course online dating is still work, but the emotional labor and risk of failure has been significantly reduced.

READ MORE ABOUT ONLINE DATING:

The many problems with online dating's radical efficiency (The Atlantic)

A million first dates (The Atlantic)

Has Facebook ruined love? (New York Times)

The upside of online dating: There's always a funny story to tell (CNN)

Can online dating alleviate loneliness? (Huffington Post)

Pride, prejudice, and online dating deception (U.S. News)

Who's telling you the truth about dating algorithms? (Fast Company)

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Match.com screenshot
This picture taken on February 9, 2010 in Paris shows the internet homepage of the dating agency website Match.com.
LOIC VENANCE/AFP/Getty Images
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