By Stewart Tongue

CYBERSPACE – A new scientific research report published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows nearly 35 percent of couples married between 2005 and 2012 met each other online. Of those relationships, nearly half met on dating sites; the other romances ignited on social networks, in chat rooms, via instant messaging or through other online forums.

John Cacioppo, lead author of the study, is a psychologist and director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago. According to Cacioppo, who conducted the research by surveying more than 19,000 individuals, dating sites may “attract people who are serious about getting married.”

Researchers also found relationships that started online tended to be slightly happier, making couples less likely to split than those who started their relationships offline.

Not everyone is ready to accept the results at face value, because the study was commissioned by dating website eHarmony. According to the study’s conflict of interest statement, eHarmony paid Harris Interactive $130,000 to fund the research. Cacioppo has been a member of eHarmony’s Scientific Advisory Board since 2007.

“It’s a very impressive study, but it was paid for by somebody with a horse in the race and conducted by an organization that might have an incentive to tell this story,” said social psychologist Eli Finkel of Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

Cacioppo defends the study, saying the results would have been made public even had they not painted a flattering picture of cyber-matchmaking.

“I set stipulations that it would be about science and not about eHarmony, and I had an agreement with eHarmony that I had complete control and we would publish no matter what we found and the data would be available to everyone,” he said, adding that two independent statisticians from Harvard University were among the co-authors of the report.