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Love me Tinder – Love under the Algorithm

-- By CharlotteBerg - 17 Jan 2024

Introduction

There are hundreds of them, designed to find your perfect match. With options for women to make the first step (Bumble: “be the CEO your parents always wanted you to marry”), the preferred same lifestyle (The League: “It’s ok to be a GOAL-digger”)), apps that are based on the religion (Muzz: “Where single Muslims meet”) or on any other preference. It seems, as if there is no niche left, a dating app would not cover. As of 2023, 25.7 million Americans use dating apps (https://www.statista.com/statistics/274144/smartphone-dating-app-users-usa/) with 10-20 percent (depending on age) of the couples having met over online dating (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/02/02/key-findings-about-online-dating-in-the-u-s/). This evident change of dating behavior in the past 10 years leads to a couple of questions: Why are we still single? And does the way, Millienials and GenZ? meet new love interests change relationships and if so, really for the worse?

How dating apps in general work

One thing, that is obviously different from analogue dating is the way, potential love interests meet: Instead of being introduced by friends and family, meeting at a bar or bumping into each other at the coffeemaker at work, an algorithm picks out the potential partner and suggests their profile to the user, leaving them (generally) the chance to either give them a “like” or not expressing interest. Most commonly, the other part is presented with the same opportunity. If both people express interest in each other, they may exchange messages and arrange a date.

The selection of new partners?

The premise of every dating app is the algorithm it is based on. They (generally) work in two ways: potential partners are either suggested based upon the same interests, similar background etc. or based upon their presumed desirability. If you generally receive more likes, you are seen as more desirable and are generally rather suggested to other people who are y seen as equally desirable. Also, a mix is of these methods is possible. One critique that is often brought up is the preselection: It essentially ensures that only a small bubble of potential partners will be presented to the user. It is, however, questionable whether this mechanism really is inferior to more “old fashioned” approaches. Because when being introduced by friends or family members, one also tends to date within their our “bubble”.

Possible effects of the process

It is often assumed that people using dating apps will not commit to long lasting, devoted relationships. And the arguments appear to be compelling: Dating apps would lose their best costumers if they were actually “designed to be deleted” (Hinge). By now, it is proven that the self-worth of the users is very likely to be impacted by the validation of other users: Every time a user achieves a match, a little firework of hormones starts in their brain, validating their self-worth. It seems very likely possible that the feeling of self-worth validation eventually becomes addictive and therefore, users would be compelled to use those apps rather than deleting them. Another popular theory that is often mentioned is that the sheer number on people using the service creates a fear-of-missing-out effect. They won’t commit to a new partner, because within the millions of users, there is a high probability that they can always find a better partner. Personally, I cannot back up this hypothesis with anecdotical evidence. On the contrary, many of the current spouses in the US met online. There are also studies that suggest that couples who have met online are less likely to divorce (https://news.uchicago.edu/story/meeting-online-leads-happier-more-enduring-marriages). (Please note that there is also a study suggesting the opposite. After 10 years of significant use of dating apps, the long-term data just start to be reliable). Also, I strongly urge to consider that there might be other reasons for an increased divorce rate or an increased single rate than meeting the significant other online. In the last decades, the understanding of relationships has significantly changed. People appear to be pickier about their partner and their expectations towards a relationship. When, for most of mankind, the focus of a marriage was to secure social and financial security, social norms have shifted rapidly within the last few decades, focusing more on partnership and the fulfillment of individual needs. Instead of focusing on one career, a lot of relationships aspire to focus on two careers which creates an additional obstacle. Also, more lifestyles are accepted than just a couple of decades ago which leads to more freedom on the one hand but also to more restraint in choosing a partnership. And finally, I feel that is important to stress that more women have become financially independent in the last decade, meaning they are not forced to stay in an unhappy relationship due to financial reasons. All these circumstances could factor into a higher divorce rate and fewer relationships to begin with, regardless from whether the partners have met over Tinder or have been set up by friends.

Other implications

So, if there is no reliable data on whether dating apps lead to more fulfilling relationships or not, there might still be compelling arguments for not using dating apps apart from the romance factor. The first one is that those apps collect a lot of sensitive data: apart from obvious data like name or age, sexual orientation or geolocation data are necessary to use those apps. Some of them collect even more information like religion, education or so on. The algorithm is also able to draw massive conclusion from those data: If two users had a match and their geolocation data suggests the same location over hours, possibly overnight, it can be concluded that the users engaged in a sexual relationship. Or the service shares those kinds of sensitive data with third parties for targeted marketing which could also lead to unwanted disclosure of personal information. The only way to avoid these perils completely is to meet people in a bar.

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