Invaluable findings from the massive database of… the OKCupid online dating site:
You can actually see groups’ insularity in real life when you look at cities with larger non-white user bases. Minorities tend to become more and more inward-looking as their numbers increase.
For every 1% increase in the black population, blacks send 2.5% more messages to each other. In Baltimore, for example, 1 in 5 users is black, but half the messages from black people go to other black people. The rate is over twice what you’d expect. Other groups show a similar pattern.
The most segregated city north of the Mason-Dixon line is a surprising [me: sic] one: New York. (…)
The data we’re seeing, however, just doesn’t support a post-racial future, because even as the races mingle more, people still like to date someone who looks like they do. Asians strongly prefer Asians; Latinos, Latinos, and so on.
It seems that generally, people of all races write down to blacks and Latinos and up to Asians and whites. This is a pretty crazy result: proof that race not only affects the quantity of the contacts between people, but the quality as well.
For example, the average black person writes at a level almost one full grade-level higher when writing to a white person than when writing to another black person.
