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Partners
Johannesburg - Forget online dating sites. Your Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts are the new matchmaking platforms if you are one of the many lonely souls searching for love.
Fans of Mzansi’s favourite reality TV show, Our Perfect Wedding, probably know this.
A number of couples featured on the show met on Facebook and have ended up tying the knot.
But it is not just ordinary folk who hook up on social media.
Celebrities, too, have found prospective partners on these digital platforms.
Twitter love
Australia-born rapper Iggy Azalea connected on Twitter with her now ex-fiancé, US basketball star Nick Young.
They tweeted each other a couple of times in 2013 before deciding to meet face to face.
They started dating in early 2014 and got engaged in 2015.
They called off the wedding the following year, after a video showing Young admitting that he had cheated on Azalea was leaked online.
Singer and actress Naya Rivera and rapper Big Sean also started following each other on Twitter.
This progressed to their having private chats online.
They later made plans to go to dinner. Soon after, romance blossomed, culminating in an engagement.
Unfortunately, they too never made it down the aisle.
Get social on social media
These well-known personalities may not have tied the knot, but research shows that social-media networks are fast becoming the ideal platforms to seek out and start romantic relationships.
For example, a University of Kansas study, released three years ago, showed that a number of US couples who were married between 2005 and 2012 had met through social-media networks.
The study also found that these couples were as likely to have successful marriages as couples who met offline.
The findings were in line with several previous academic studies, but there is no local research to back them up.
Vuyo Temba, a Johannesburg-based clinical psychologist, says it is not surprising that the idea of people meeting on social media and forming romantic relationships has gained momentum.
“We live in the digital era, when people spend a lot of time on social media. This has reduced the distance between people and also widened the pool of networks connecting individuals,” she says.
“A person can live on the other side of the world, but can still embark on a relationship. Other modes of communication, such as Skype and FaceTime, facilitate this process.”
She adds, though, that it is not common practice for people to join social media with the intention of finding love.
“Many start out as friends, and later discover that they share common interests,” she says.
Two women, who spoke to City Press about finding love on social media from a pool of friends, attest to this. (READ MORE HERE!)
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