Dating in the Digital Age : A Research Experiment
son . Some of the people I spoke with were friends , others were strangers , and sometimes they were friends of friends . I spoke to anyone willing to openly and honestly share details of their personal dating lives and experiences . Lastly , I conducted an online survey of 100 strangers through a paid subscription service via SurveyMonkey .
A helpful and relevant resource was the 2016 book , Modern Romance : An Investigation , which was co-authored by standup comedian Aziz Ansari and New York University professor and sociologist Eric Klinenberg . The book is a light-hearted , comedic read , while still delivering legitimate , data-driven social science research . While I do not agree with all that the book argues , I still find its nuanced approach to the dilemmas of dating in the digital age both poignant and relatable . The book addresses single life in New York , as well as Los Angeles , Tokyo , Buenos Aires , and Paris , covering a broad , albeit limited , cultural range of contemporary dating mores .
Since I was interested in conducting a creative , hands-on experimental project , while simultaneously fusing together a few elements from my dissertation , the scope herein is a bit more limited , with a lighter overall tone , than that of my other academic work . If a significant level of financial support was existent , the research and experimentation demonstrated and discussed throughout Modern Romance is , in many ways , an example of the ideal culmination of an experimental research project such as this one . Nevertheless , I believe a key value to this project is mainly derived from its experimental processes .
THE PEOPLE
My real Facebook account served as the initial go-to place for collecting stories about dating in the digital age . While the
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