Another cultural force that has contributed to the rationalization of love has been the overlap of internet technology with psychological knowledge and the ideology of choice that derives from the market. That the choice of a mate has become more rational than ever before has often been misperceived because love as a pure emotion has become a far more important dimension in mate selection than ever before in history(...)
(...) By enabling users to investigate a vast number of options, the internet encourages the maximization of partner selection in unprecedented ways, in stark contrast to the methods of premodernity. Maximization of outcome has become a goal in and of itself. For example, many respondents to an open-ended questionnaire about the uses of Internet dating sites declared the choices available were so large that they would get in touch only with people who corresponded very precisely to their diverse aspirations. Moreover, the majority of respondents reported that their tastes changed in the course of their search and that they aspired to “more accomplished” people than they did at the beginning of the search.
Like no other technology, the internet has radicalized the notion of the self as a “chooser” and the idea that the romantic encounter should be the result of the best possible choice. That is, the virtual encounter has become hyper-cognized, the result of a rational method of gathering information to select a mate. It has literally become organized as a market, in which one can compare “values” attached to people, and opt for “the best bargain.” The internet places each person searching for another in an open market of open competition with others, thus radicalizing the notion that one can and should improve one’s romantic condition and that (potential or actual) partners are eminently interchangeable.
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