Throwback: Taxpayers billed for online flirting

Topline: Sky-high tax bills and endless swiping on dating apps don’t share much in common aside from being frustrating. Yet somehow, the federal government found a way to link the two.

Between 2008 and 2012, the National Science Foundation spent $440,000 to help researchers at Stanford University study the relatively new concept of online dating. The money would be worth $617,000 today.

Most of the spending is documented in the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For years, these reports shined a white-hot spotlight on federal frauds and taxpayer abuses.

Coburn, the legendary U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, earned the nickname “Dr. No” by stopping thousands of pork-barrel projects using the Senate rules. Projects that he couldn’t stop, Coburn included in his oversight reports.

Coburn’s Wastebook 2010 included 100 examples of outrageous spending worth more than $11.5 billion, including the $440,000 to NSF.

Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com. 

Key facts: Sociology professor Michael J. Rosenfeld led the study, which offered a “How Couples Meet and Stay Together Survey” to 4,000 people.

Researchers analyzed whether couples that met online were more or less likely to break up after one year.

They also concluded that couples they deemed to be “traditional” — “heterosexual couples and couples that are uniform by race and religion” — were less likely to meet online than so-called “nontraditional couples.”

Some of the researchers’ hypotheses were not exactly groundbreaking. They predicted that Americans with internet access at home were more likely to use online dating, and that dating apps would cause a lower percentage of couples to meet in person.

Nevertheless, the study was cited by NPR, The New York Times and even in comedian Aziz Ansari’s 2015 book “Modern Romance” — all thanks to federal taxpayers.

The study was updated several times with information about new apps like Tinder and Grindr, most recently in 2017.

Summary: Given that dating app usage has been declining for years, it seems safe to say Stanford’s study was not worth $440,000. Buying someone a drink at a bar is a much cheaper flirting tactic — no scientific research necessary.

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