Is social media redefining love? That’s the theme of our latest study from Euro RSCG Worldwide. We know that social media has changed the way we live—and now, we’ve discovered, it’s changing the way we love. For this white paper, the agency surveyed 1,000 respondents in the United States to explore how the digital world, specifically social media, has affected their lives in the areas of love and intimacy.

We tackle new realities in love, like the question of whether old-fashioned matchmaking will be a job of the past (about half of those we surveyed said they knew someone whose relationship had started online), and how old is too old to search for closeness online? Has social media impacted fidelity? (Our survey says yes.) Which generation is most actively utilizing online connections to find their love connections? And what do Facebook and the neighborhood bar have in common? Our groundbreaking survey reveals the answers to these questions and more.

Here are some highlights from our report:

Digital: the desire for love meets real-time interaction

• Why does social media change the world of “love”? Because it gives people instant access not only to romantic and erotic content, but now more importantly, to each other.

The young, as to be expected, lead the way

• On virtually every metric in our survey, positive and not-so-positive attitudes towards online romance correlate directly with age—which makes sense, since Gen-Y was born into life online.
• For Gen-Y, it’s all about checking out the full range of who’s available, playing the field, trying partners out and maybe hoping to find the One for a serious relationship.

But don’t count out the seniors

• As society ages, with huge demographics aging but wanting to continue to live robust lives, time takes its toll on their old connections, and they will need new connections.
• For older people who may not feel like cruising singles bars or ready for senior speed dating, online services will be a new lease on romantic life.

Pre-social media, the internet delivered fantasy; post-social media, it delivers reality

• One thing that makes social media crucially different from traditional media is the scope for interactions with real people—it’s two-way and now real people can interact.
• More than a quarter of men and 14 percent of women have experienced strong feelings for somebody online, while 22 percent of men and 12 percent of women have said they’ve had romantic, sexual or erotic relationships online.

Easily distracted

• Interestingly, 34 percent of men and 37 percent of women believe that online relationships can be too much of a distraction from face-to-face relationships. More women than men see the negative effects of online relationships with face-to-face relationships, while more men than women see the positive effects.

To cheat, or not to cheat?

• Social media has lessened the time, money and effort of searching for partners, and increased the likely success rate. Even people who are married or in a stable relationship can keep looking for more attractive partners; they can stay in the market, either looking for opportunities to cheat or else for a completely new relationship.
• The results show that there is a lot of potential for relationship shake-ups bubbling under the surface in the United States. Above all, there’s a very significant minority (overall 25 percent) looking to “spice things up.”
• More than half of Americans of all conditions think the Internet has made it easier for people to cheat on their partners. A strikingly high proportion of the overall sample (31 percent) knows somebody whose relationship ended because of their actions online. This is a huge impact for technologies that have been truly mainstream for barely a decade.

Online or offline…it’s cheating.

• A great majority of Americans disagree that “having a strongly sexual relationship online doesn’t count as cheating on your partner.”

To read more of our titillating findings, download the full white paper.