Facebook也开始做媒婆啦经济学人精讲第397期

文章导读

本文选自《经济学人》2019年9月14日文章。Facebook也做起了保媒拉纤的工作，与传统的与陌生人配对的约会软件不同，Facebook利用自己强大的用户关系网，为用户在朋友的朋友中保媒拉纤，这在结婚率日益下降的今天，也是做了一件好事。也许未来Facebook夫妻也会成为人类研究的课题之一。

由于篇幅较长，本文节选原文标题和全文重点段落进行精讲，文末有获取原文全文阅读链接方式。

选文精讲

Facebook’s new dating service could return dating to its pre-internet ways

Facebook的新交友服务可能会让约会回到互联网出现之前的状态

In America it is no longer merely acceptable to meet your romantic partner on the internet. It is the norm. The latest data from a long-running survey by researchers at Stanford, released this summer, shows that 40% of newheterosexualcouples met online in 2017, far more than at bars, through friends or at work. For gay couples the proportion is even higher, at 60%.

heterosexual: 异性恋的

在美国，人们不仅接受在网上遇到自己的另一半，这还是一个常态。斯坦福大学研究人员今年夏天发布的一项长期调查的最新数据显示，2017年，40%的新异性恋情侣是在网上认识的，远远超过酒吧、朋友或工作场所。对于同性恋伴侣来说，这一比例甚至更高，达到60%。

Little wonder, then, that Facebook is bringing a dating service to the richestdenizensof its internetfief. Facebook Dating launched in America on September 5th, having been tested first in smaller markets such as Colombia and Canada. American Facebook users seeking significant others can now find the dating service in a dedicated tab within the firm’s smartphone app. Willing daters must explicitly create a profile and fill in their preferences. Users may, if they wish, tap into their social graph to look for matches among friends of friends, but that option is not on by default. Facebook says any data generated while searching will be kept separate from its main service and not used to target ads.

denizen: 网民

fief: 阵地、领域、范围

因此，Facebook为其最富有的网民提供约会服务就不足为奇了。Facebook约会于9月5日在美国推出，首先在哥伦比亚和加拿大等较小的市场进行了测试。寻找另一半的美国Facebook用户现在可以在该公司智能手机应用程序的一个专门标签上找到约会服务。愿意约会的人必须明确创建个人资料，并填写自己的偏好。如果用户愿意，他们可以点击自己的社交图，在朋友的朋友之间寻找匹配项，但该选项在默认情况下不启用。Facebook表示，搜索过程中产生的任何数据，都将与其主要服务分开，不会用于投放广告。

Facebook Dating has the potential to break one of the most interesting features of internet dating. Most dating apps pair up strangers, rather than friends of friends. For instance Tinder, the most popular dating app, pairs people up by allowing them to choose from a menu of potential partners within a set radius of where they are. OkCupid, a more old-school text-based approach, asks users to read through a profile. Real-life pairings are usually circumscribed by a person’s social sphere, and the chances of meeting a total stranger are low.

Facebook约会有可能会打破互联网约会最有趣的特点之一。大多数交友软件都是为陌生人配对，而不是为朋友的朋友配对。例如，最受欢迎的约会应用Tinder，通过让特定范围的人们，在潜在伴侣的菜单中做选择，来进行配对。OkCupid是一种更传统的基于文本的方法，它要求用户阅读个人资料。现实生活中的配对通常受到一个人的社会圈子的限制，遇到一个完全陌生的人的几率很低。