Everyone wants to be a winner in the dating game; but it doesn’t always work that way …
A 2015 article in the New York Post argued that mobile dating apps, such as Tinder and its many clones, are ultimately ‘tearing society apart’ by drastically changing the way young single adults in Western society seek and pursue romantic and sexual partners.
A recent study by Mitchell Hobbs, Stephen Owen and Livia Gerber (2016) asks whether that assessment is really true. The project explores the experiences of dating app users and investigates how the technology has influenced their sexual practices and views on romantic ideals and long-term relationships.
Offline desires, online realities
Meeting sexual and romantic partners specifically through dating apps has four characteristics: First, users are able to engage in casual, one-off or short-term, sexual encounters without engaging in any further social interaction. Second, dating apps allow users to broaden their romantic networks, extending beyond their existing social networks. Thirdly, dating apps are an efficient means of connecting with several potential partners at the same time. And, fourth, the emergence of dating apps has perpetuated a culture in which communication is increasingly focused around self-presentation and self-commodification.
The latter characteristic in particular may generate a sense of anxiety and frustration around the need to create a successful profile.
Self-presentation in the dating game
Mobile dating apps were initially designed as a type of game to take the stress and emotional investment out of dating. The tactile functionality of the app, combined with users’ photo-based profiles resembles a virtual stack of cards: Profiles are presented like playing cards, and the user can swipe left on the screen to ‘dislike’ or swipe right to ‘like’ a profile. These profiles are only shown once – swiping left to ‘dislike’ therefore eliminates these profiles from the ‘game’. Mutual right swipes result in a ‘match’ and only then can communication be initiated. Successful tindering is therefore in part measured by the amount of matches one obtains, as one of our participants explained:
Yeah when you get matched it’s like ooh! That’s quite cool, that’s the fun part and that’s also probably quite the addictive part of it as well, I’d imagine. And yeah it’s obviously good for good feelings.
Despite this elation of getting a match, many – particularly male – participants expressed a sense of frustration over their lack of success (i.e. their lack of matches) when using dating apps, indicating that dating apps may be perpetuating the exact anxiety they were designed to eliminate:
Tinder is purely based on looks. It’s a numbers’ game essentially. It’s swipe how many times you want. Um so I don’t personally like it still as a primary means of finding a relationship.
Engagement with the ‘game’ creates a level of anxiety that appears to stem from not gaining access to the smorgasbord of potential sexual and romantic partners theoretically available through dating apps. As another male participant remarked:
Everyone is copping a root but me.
In the online sphere, unattractive men have less chances at winning mutual matches, creating a sense that the average-looking guy is missing out on the dating game:
The 10% of highly attractive people fucking all the time make the rest of us feel bad.
In an offline context, ‘average-looking’ guys might be able to harness their interpersonal and communication skills instead:
I’m not suited to this app. I’m trying to find the right phrase but like the profiles that you think would get like high likes because of certain things they put in isn’t really me and I don’t try and do it. I also just think I’m more traditional in so far as I like to bump into someone at a bar or room across- eyes across a room that’s how I actually connect with people because I think half of meeting someone the fun is body language like reading little bits of body language.
In sum, how to present oneself in the best possible light online is a major concern for the users of dating apps. Whilst some participants felt that they are not suited to mobile dating apps due to a lack of successful self-presentation strategies, others engage in self-commodification in an attempt to increase their dating app success.
Self-commodification in the Tinder game
Self-commodification becomes an essential part of designing one’s profile. One interviewee described how he helped his friend to improve his Tinder profile:
So I ask ‘Can I look at your profile and can I change it for you?’ So I get him a different picture and I make his profile his ‘buyer’ – he didn’t have a buyer. I made his profile a buyer, and said ‘You can always go back’ and it blew up! It was almost like in the movies.
Users have the option of adding additional information or captions (referred to here as a ‘buyer’ and elsewhere as ‘digital pick-up line’) to their profiles. While some profiles strategically communicate very little, some male participants reported feeling put off by long digital pick-up lines:
So most of the time apparently it’s just a highly sexualised or very blunt statement of intentions. Um there are funny ones. But um and then some like you see some girls will put- um have like a really long thing, really long statement about fun-loving. Everyone in the world apparently is fun-loving. Oh god. Worst, most overused statement I’ve ever- but anyway [sighs] um the- at the very end of these monstrous spiels sometimes they’ll write ‘say orange if you’ve read this.’ And so you’re expected if you match, the first thing you say to them is orange to show that you’ve actually read through it.
In general, men appear to be less particular about whom they swipe right on in an attempt to increase their chances of gaining a match. However, these swipes do not always result in the kind of match the users were looking for, as another participant indicated:
He was frustrated cause of like five matches he’d had in the last two weeks four of them turned out to be prostitutes. The thing that made him so angry was that one of them actually talked to him for a whole week before she told him her rates.
In sum, male participants reported many frustrations related to looking for love on the move: getting a match was not actually ‘as easy as play’ – and even if they got matches, they were not always the kind of match they desired.
Changing communication strategies for the sexual marketplace
Dating apps certainly do not take the stress out of trying to find love, sex and romance. On the contrary, they may be creating new anxieties around online communication strategies. Male users, in particular, expressed frustration over the need to brand themselves as desirable commodities in the sexual marketplace. If dating apps are indeed ‘tearing society apart’ it is not because they result in everyone having casual sex all the time but because they create many more desires than they can fullfil.
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Reference
Hobbs, M., Owen, S., & Gerber, L. (2016). Liquid love? Dating apps, sex, relationships and the digital transformation of intimacy Journal of Sociology DOI: 10.1177/1440783316662718
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This article is interesting to read! As someone who had personal experience of trying dating apps, I can highly relate to this matter even though I am a woman, which is different from the subject of this article which is men. Since dating apps became more of an example of people-pleasing apps that are based on the appearances in line with the certain standards being projected by society these days, average-looking people are sort of shoved into the shadow as only the ones who are attractive looking people get those right swipes. I think that these apps sort of disregarded the idea of having the conversation first, which is an important part of relationship-building dynamics. And it is indeed a gender issue as these things are still rampant in the online dating society.
On the second thought, I agree with one of the statements where it says, “I’m not suited to this app. I’m trying to find the right phrase but like the profiles that you think would get like high likes because of certain things they put in isn’t really me and I don’t try and do it. I also just think I’m more traditional in so far as I like to bump into someone at a bar or room across- eyes across a room that’s how I actually connect with people because I think half of meeting someone the fun is body language like reading little bits of body language.” Being able to try a similar app was quite an experience yet I realized that I preferred meeting people, especially for romantic (or platonic) purposes in person. Like the idea of meeting them in a certain place or event, rather than online, since we have this internet identity which is sometimes a whole different persona of what we are in online. And with that, I seconded the motion of the particular person on being able to connect with someone personally than on online sites.
In this day and age, it seems as though more and more millennials have chosen to use social media to find love rather than the traditional way. Although many people have opinions on if that is the right way to get a partner, many believe it is okay. In my opinion I believe it is ones personal choice whether or not they resort to apps to find companionship. It eventually becomes addicting. Creating a
Personally, I believe it creates a world of opportunity to make new friends. Opening up a realm of possibilities and relationships that can lead to anything from platonic and intellectual to sexual and temporary. With the capability of having control of whether or not you would want to continue with someone gives confidence that may not be acquired in the real world.
On the contrary, men have it a little worse than men. While this article states that men produce anxiety that they may not have had before going on dating apps, male users, become frustrated over the need to make themselves as desirable as can be. People may not always be who they are. They create personas that make themselves seem more gratifying. Sadly, people as well tend to lie. Building a relationship on a lie tends to backfire. Yet, I believe that by being smart and cautious many situations may be avoided.
Thanks Livia, this article is thought-provoking to me. Actually, it remind me of some point in Evolutionary psychology, which is frequently mentioned by one of my friend. When we talk about love, he always use some views from evolutionary psychology to support his view. This article reflect one of the evolutionary psychology view that people tend to choose a partner according to their appearance because good looking often means genetic advantage. According to the theory, attractive appearance means less genetic disease and health body. Tinder may have a positive contribution to human future, to some extent.
A very interesting article to read.I believe that these apps (Facebook, tweeter, tinder ) are a good way of making new friends and connecting to your old friends which due to some reasons lost contacts. Whereas talking about love and making relationships, you can not trust a person simply through its profile. Firstly people make fake profiles to gain publicity , secondly you need to know a person personally to be in a relationship. Love is not a game its a bond for life and needs to be cherished which according to me can not be done through these sites or apps.
Interesting article about finding love on the Internet, albeit published last year. I definitely think that apps (e.g. Tinder) and sites (e.g. eHarmony.com) have their place as a romance tool. They can connect many people to a variety of relationship types, when other initial means are few. People can build up a network of friends and possible matches fairly quickly, yes, to more that one person at a time. Certainly faster and more effective than family or friends setting you up.
However, this article is right – Tinder is too often based on a person’s outward appearance, or even what to say in your profile. Sometimes, in real life first impressions are not what they seem. A person might be good-looking, but not pleasant to be around, and vice versa. The good-looking, articulate people get more hits than the average ones, and yes, sometimes that’s not fair. A good match for someone doesn’t always have to be smooth-talking and handsome (although it’s nice!). Their are plenty of other great attributes, that will serve the relationship well.
Tinder also eliminates people completely once they are flicked away. This is not a reflection of real life, since you might well change your mind about dating someone – what happens then? Are people nothing more than objects to be flicked away if they don’t meet someone’s standards? Seems to encourage judgmentalism in my opinion – which is not a great trait for any long-term relationship!
Tinder is also not for everyone – the way it works, only certain people will choose to use dating apps, and their ideal match might not be the person who does use them.
On the whole, Tinder and other sites are great introductory tools, but should be taken with a grain of salt. Sometimes waiting a little while for someone in real life is worth it, too.