An incredible 40 percent of American adults today are single. Many of them don’t want to be. Americans have always hoped for love’s lightening to strike. Now, many are not leaving that lightening strike to chance. They’re looking for love — for partnership, for a spouse — online, and in record numbers.

The big internet boom is now in the dating game. After years at the margins, web-based matchmaking services have gone mainstream. They’re pulling in hundreds of millions of dollars and bringing together millions of American singles. Sociologists now say internet dating is changing American courtship, and promises to change it more. But is the line-item web profile also changing American romance?

Click the “Listen” link to hear about the internet dating boom and how it’s changing American courtship and the conventional way of dating.

Guests:

Anna Mulrine, Reporter, US News and World Report

Pepper Schwartz, Professor of Sociology, University of Washington, and advisor to perfectmatch.com;Trish McDermott, Vice President of Romance, match.com;