Single SL: Less Than 6% of Second Life Residents Have In-World Partner, Veteran Users More Commitment-Oriented

Longtime SL Resident Jade Lily with listed partner (also married IRL)

Marriage and commitment ceremonies in Second Life are usually the focal point for wildly elaborate and well-attended celebrations. One unconscious reason for all that excitement?  As it turns out, probably because they're so rare.

That news from Second Life business/demographics analyst Metaverse Business, which employs data- gathering bots to generate highly detailed user data from Residents' public profiles.  Founder Louis Platini shares his findings with New World Notes from time to time (as here, and here), and I recently asked him if he could determine the number of Residents who listed an official partner in their profile. His bots went off tither, and after many weeks (months even) of counting, came back with these results:

Number of profiles retrieved : 698,997 - Profiles with a partner: 40,967 - Percentage: 5.86%

This would seem like a surprisingly low number, especially for a virtual world with near gender parity. (Women comprise roughly 42% of the active population.) Strikingly, the Residents who do have a partner listed are disproportionately veteran users who've been in Second Life for over four years. (2005 was a banner year for metaverse commitment, with 1 in 3 Residents born that year partnering up.)

How to explain the results?  An explosion of casual users in recent years, for one thing, but I suspect another major factor at play: divorce.  In 2006, a famed virtual wedding planner once complained to me how in the early times, Second Life partnerships were made to last.  More recently, she sighed, "They just do it for a few weeks for fun, then put in a divorce request on the website."

Full chart and Mr. Platini's trenchant analysis of the numbers after the break:

Louis Platini on the chart below:  "About the total avatar population: Our scanners only detect avatars that `escaped` orientation island. Avatars that explore many sims are more likely to be detected.

"Notice that we have more avatars from 2007 then 2008. Reason might be that a lot of people have discovered SL during the hype year (2007), while less people have tried out SL in 2008. Note that 2009 shows an increase which is also shown by LL reports. Also note that lower percentage of avatars with a partner in 2007, another indication people where trying out SL in 2007, but did not build any social network."

Proportion with partners depending on birth date (SL account birth date) 

Year Born	No Partner	Partner	%
2002	9	3	25.00
2003	128	49	27.68
2004	1143	422	26.96
2005	4112	1225	29.79
2006	47658	6341	11.74
2007	328524	15241	4.43%
2008	175381	13459	7.13%
2009	101055	4227	4.01%

 Data courtesy Metaverse-Business.com

Comments

[London Spengler]

"Avatars that explore many sims are more likely to be detected"

As I see it, many partnered people tend to stay a lot at the same sims, with a fixed set of friends, and so it is hard that they will be detectected by those scanners.

Even if we only consider that partnered couples tend to stay at home much more than single ones, that should bring a lot of doubt about that scarce six percent the statistic show.

Anyway, only to add our 0.000003 percent... born in 2006, partnered in 2007 and still going *smiles*.

[Ari Blackthorne]

I am curious how bots are factored into all this data.

I am seriously convinced that one in 4 "green dots" on the map is a bot of some kind, maybe even a higher ratio. Plowing through 'user profiles' doesn't necessarily indicate an active account (in many forms of "active" as well.)

I have been in SL since early '06 and have more or less given up peeking at profiles very often. But one thing I also have noticed with the "partner" field is the number of 'partners' that are same sex (apparently) and almost always where both are female.

Just some curiosities.

:)

[Crap Mariner]

Does a bot itself count as active?

-ls/cm

[Skate Foss]

As an 06 resident who was always against the whole partnering concept,
I must say that when cupid's arrow hits you.. it can knock you down.

[Thorn Witrial]

I was born in '08 and met my future partner when I was three weeks old. He was nearly two years old at the time and had been single nearly all of those two years. We didn't know at the time how amazing we would find each other to be. ^_^

After 'living in sin' for several months, I asked him to partner and we did, Feb. 7 of this year.

[Dawny]

I am partnered since the end of november 2007 and were still together. RL since januari 2008.
I find it strange to see those figures are only 6% because when I look at profiles I see alot of them are partnered.

[Siobhan Taylor]

Born 2003, been with current partner since Nov 2004, partnered since Feb 2005. Still going strong.

[Viorel Daviau]

If LL added the option to have multiple partners you would see that number rise quite a bit.

[YP]

I'm exhausted from all the IM's I get now. Partnered? No thanks... wouldn't get a minute to myself. I prefer to do things and go places on my tod thank you very much.

In my experience it's us veterans who aren't partnered and the week old residents who are married with the 'talking stomach' sorry mini avie on the way.

[JohnD Troglodite]

I don't buy for a second that partnering is nearly this uncommon among people who actually log in regularly. And since in my experience people who partner casually tend to also partner serially -- that is, most people I know who partner and break up also tend to partner again within a few months -- the "divorce" hypothesis is dubious at best.

[Mitch Wagner]

I've always assumed that Second Life weddings existed for the purpose of having the wedding. Not that there's anything wrong with that. And I've never actually been to an SL wedding.

[Ann Otoole]

Oh only 6%?

Hey since Linden Lab is on a Sherman March To The Sea campaign of cutting features then there you go. I expect to see partnering be deleted in the near future. Just not enough interest in that feature.

Sadly a lot of people and numerous businesses depend on that feature. So it is definitely another way to force active concurrency down by driving customers away.

So that is two major justifications.

The third is if someone close to Linden Lab got their feelings hurt in a partnership then three strikes and it is out.

Since weddings are personal you tend to have to be a close friend of someone to be invited Mitch. I've been to a few weddings and Handfastings. Very touching and pretty.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

"Veteran Users More Commitment-Oriented"

It's not that people are more likely to commit because they're veterans; they're veterans because they're more likely to commit. Somebody invested in a long-term relationship with another resident is likely to stay with a given virtual world longer than someone who isn't.

Increase retention; implement matchmaking services :)

[Jane2 McMahon]

You have to factor in bots and alts..the percentage increases. Further not every partnering is a "wedding" or "romantic".

[CyFishy Traveler]

What about avies who have been previously partnered and have given up on the notion after that partnership ended for whatever reason?

I'm also wondering how you would count people who have partnered, unpartnered and repartnered several different avies in rapid succession. After seeing enough of those, one starts to take the whole partnership thing a little less seriously.

[Juko Tempel]

Also important to note that at best this just counts people who use the SL partnering mechanism.. and many don't. As already mentioned it can't show multiple partners, and having 'partnered' in your profile isn't the only way to be committed to someone :-)

[Sisou]

@Ann It would be pretty dumb if they took away the feature ( not that they immune to dumb actions) as they would be crushing ppl that feature is Important (deleting their expression of love or friendship). thats harsh. I would seriously think of quitting if they did.

One other quick point. The number of real partnerships must be very small. As my mate and I partnered our alts together ( i know other couples who do this too). And I'm sure ppl also partnered their own alts together just to avoid ims from suitors.

[Lissa Pinion]

I don't believe that those numbers are correct. First of all, while most of my inworld friends do enjoy exploring, we do all tend to stick to our sims so maybe surfers aren't being counted b/c of this. hehe The majority of us are partnered as well and it seems we are invited to quite a few weddings. Of course there is room for numbers being off kilter to a few degrees either way but only 6%? No way. My partner and I just partnered after being together nearly 2 yrs while we do know those who partner then divorce faster than rabbits mate. No way I can believe only 6%