Can You Fall In Love With Someone Through Text Message? [Study + Infographic] By Roberta Cardoso

The New York Times published an article titled �No. 37: Big Wedding Or Small?� The article presented a quiz comprised of 36 questions that supposedly lead to love�or, at least, an accelerated feeling of intimacy between strangers.

The idea was that if you sat down with a perfect stranger and exchanged these 36 questions, you would have shared enough intimate information with them to create a feeling of closeness in just one conversation.

The NYT article actually pulled the questions from a 1997 study led by Dr. Arthur Aron titled �The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness: A Procedure and Some Preliminary Findings.� The purpose of the study was to achieve an accelerated sense of intimacy between strangers in only 45 minutes.

We wanted to test the study but with a 21st century twist: can people fall in love through text message?

But we wanted to take it a step further: what if participants didn’t even know what their partner looked like?

According to the research done by Christian Rudder, author of Dataclysm , �photos drive 90% of the action in online dating.�

Step 1: The questionnaire

We assembled a group of 32 participants ranging from 21-34 years of age. We sent them a preliminary questionnaire asking for their name, age, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and profession, as well as a number of attitudinal questions like whether or not they drink or smoke, their level of spontaneity, etc.

Step 2: Matchmaking

Once we had gathered all of their responses, we did our best to match the participants with a partner with whom they cardiff sugar daddy websites shared similar attitudes and values. None of the participants had any idea who they had been paired up with.

We then sent the participants an email instructing them to come to our office on a Wednesday evening for around two hours to participate in the study.

Step 3: The participants meet their matches through text

When the participants arrived, we pointed them to a boardroom where the WiFi connection information and refreshments were set up. We then instructed them to take a seat at an empty work station and refrain from talking to the other participants.

The participants then logged into the Slack accounts we set up for them and entered their assigned channel where they would communicate in private with their partner.

�You will be paired with another person in this room whom you don’t know. (We have matched you, based on the questionnaire you completed prior to arriving here, with someone we think will like you and whom you will like). The purpose of this exercise is to form a sense of intimacy between you and your partner at an accelerated pace.

Once the conversation period begins you es with your partner. Over 45 minutes, you and the person we have paired you with will talk about a series of particular topics designed to help you get close. Your conversation will be conducted entirely through text chat, with no physical interaction. Please refrain from looking around at other participants to figure out who your partner is�we want to keep it anonymous until the end of the conversation period.

At the end of the conversation period, you will have the option of exchanging contact information with your partner over text chat. After that, you will be given 10 minutes to individually complete a post-conversation questionnaire reflecting on your experience.

If you would like a drink refill or more food, please put raise your hand and we can get it for you, so as not to alert your partner of who you are.�