Oh.
Hello, you.
Brown hair, brown eyes.
Went to Penn state university for… bio-science?
I can’t picture you in a white robe and those funky glasses.
You strike me as more of a creative; perhaps an architect.
Is bio-science really what you want to be doing?
I don’t think so.
Why are you running away from who you really are?
You’re from Baltimore, Maryland.
Perhaps you can take me to Faidley’s seafood one day, I’ve heard it’s good.
Wait, what’s this?
Of course you’re vegetarian.
You care about animals and the environment.
You also care enough about getting to know me to swipe right on me.
What do you want to happen now?
It’s been 6 minutes and you haven’t made a move.
Are you waiting for me to come to you?
What games are you playing with me here?
How will this end?
Online dating is extremely popular.
Tinder reports 57 million users worldwide.
20% of all Americans engage in online dating, which is a lot considering that only 30% of
Americans are single.
Of Americans recently married, over 30% met online.
Needless to say, you can't really ignore it.
So, I’m actually not on the online dating market, but I have been in the past, and so
I’d like to share with you why I think it may be a good idea to say goodbye to online
dating, specifically to apps like Tinder.
*puh* We got a lot of ground to cover today.
Integration
Before we get into it, the topic of relationships is one that a lot of people have difficulty
with.
Whether that’s dating or breaking up, it’s not always easy.
I’ve sought out help when I felt like I’ve needed it, and I’m happy I did.
Therefore, I thought it would be perfect to partner with BetterHelp for today’s video.
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The game of online dating
I.
The manipulation
I recently listened to this podcast episode.
And in it, Rob Henderson talked about something called “seeding” which is essentially
when a dating app creates so-called bots, typically of conventionally attractive women,
and then these profiles intentionally match with men who have recently created a profile.
Apparently, these bots even have brief conversations with these men, before they stop responding.
The objective is basically to get these men hooked by giving them a small taste of, I
guess, what they could have.
I wanted to see if I could find any research to confirm this, but what I found were mostly
people sharing their experiences on different forums, so, whether you decide it’s a reliable
source or not is up to you.
But here’s what one person, who’s allegedly an employee at a dating app, wrote:
“Many apps seed attractive bots to keep people engaged.
The bots will send/respond to a couple of substandard questions.
'How was your week?'
'What are you looking for?' and then ghost.
Despite the ghost, the high of matching with a super attractive person who spoke to you
is enough to get many people hooked and chasing the dragon."
I actually really recommend that you check out that podcast, they talk about, for instance,
why, generally speaking, men swipe at a much higher rate and get far less matches, as opposed
to women who swipe a lot less yet get more matches.
Bots or not, there’s also plenty of fake profiles and catfishing on these apps.
And all of those things can make it difficult to navigate.
As if dating in today’s climate in itself isn’t stressful enough.
II.
The addiction
Sometimes the anticipation of matching with someone; the kick and the validation that
comes from that, may feel better to us than the desire to actually pursue our match and
go on a date/connect with them; because anticipation of a reward releases more dopamine than actually
getting the reward.
It’s basic psychology.
This is why gambling, or in this case, swiping, can become so addicting.
And that may actually be the point, according to Tinder CSO Jonathan Badeen, the guy who
invented swiping, who said he’d partly been inspired by Skinner's psychological experiment.
Let me explain.
This is a picture of a pigeon.
I feel like a lecturer with a powerpoint presentation, but bare with me.
In 1948, a psychological experiment was conducted by psychologist B.F. Skinner, that turned
pigeons into 'gambling fanatics'.
In the experiment, he conditioned hungry pigeons to believe that food delivered randomly into
a tray was prompted by their pecking.
The pigeons began pecking more in the hopes of earning extra food, essentially turning
them into 'gamblers'.
Here’s what was said about the experiment:
III.
The intention
There’s a broad range of people with different intentions to be found on dating apps; and
navigating through it isn’t always easy, especially for sites like tinder where you
don’t need to fill in any other information than your name and age basically to start
a profile, unlike apps like Bumble for example where you can state what kind of relationship
you’re looking for in your profile and then set it to so that you can only match with
people who are looking for the same thing as you.
I couldn’t find any recent studies on this, other than one from 2009, which showed that
49% of online daters reported looking for marriage, and 47% reported seeking casual
sex.
A more recent study, however, analysing the swiping habits of 641 Norwegian university
students aged between 19 and 29, showed that mtn seem to be more interested in hooking
up, while women primarily looked for self-validation.
I also found several studies showing that a lot of people use dating apps as a form
of entertainment, in other words, when they’re bored.
For example, in one study, 9,751 college students were asked why they use Tinder, 44% said they
use it for “confidence-boosting procrastination,”.
And now look, we can look at these studies all we want, but that’s not very helpful
when you’re sitting there swiping and chatting.
Like, what’s your opening line going to be?
Hello, fellow human!
Do you belong to the 49% group or the 47% or are you just bored?
I don’t know, maybe that’s how the conversation should start, just to kind of get it out of
the way.
IV.
The self-image
Now, I’d like to dig deeper into the point about self-validation, before getting into
the point that I find to be the most important, or perhaps disturbing, in this conversation.
Not everyone gets a confidence boost from using tinder.
A lot of people who use it actually report having lower levels of satisfaction with their
appearance and even lower levels of self worth, and this goes for men and women.
People may also start to feel depersonalized and disposable and question their own worth.
However, it's unclear whether or not it's the app that is causing lower self-esteem,
or if it's just that people with lower self-esteem are more drawn to these types of apps.
Now, there’s a lot of conversation about how online dating makes people feel disposable
and that we’re living in a “disposability” or “throwaway” culture, and part of it,
I believe, has to do with the anonymity.
V. The anonymity
So, I have a theory.
Back in the day, before online dating came along, people were only really introduced
to each other via families or mutual friends, or you met someone in school or at work.
And because there were mutual parties involved, there was a level of accountability.
Like, let’s say you met through family connections.
You probably wouldn’t want to act like a complete nuthead and have people who know
you or know of you talk negatively about you; because chances are, they’d find out.
Today, however, most people you match with on dating apps are complete strangers with
no connection to us or to our circle, and I believe it makes people feel less accountable,
so there’s more “freedom” in the way that you can kind of act however you want,
and there won’t really be any consequences.
For example, you can completely vanish, as if the match, the conversation, or even date
or entire relationship, never happened, in other words: ghosting.
Most of you probably have heard of ghosting; it's when someone you’ve talked to or been
on a date with or several dates with, or even someone you’ve had a whole relationship
with, suddenly vanishes from your life.
No conversation.
No “let’s meet up”.
They just disappear.
Like a ghost.
And it’s not a rarity, it’s really common.
Lastly, and I think this is probably the main reason I haven’t found online dating to
be very appealing, is that it lacks the physical element.
We’re social creatures.
We make judgments based on people's body language, their non-verbal cues; their energy and how
it matches with ours.
How they smell, how they sound, how we feel around them.
Those are the very basics that determine how we feel about a person and whether or not
there’s any attraction.
With online dating, we miss out on that element.
Even if you decide to go on a date with someone who you might’ve “clicked with” online,
the in-person experience may feel completely different.
Whereas when you meet someone in-person for the first time, you’ve already gotten a
snapshot of how you feel about them.
It’s worth mentioning that it may be the other way around too; that you don’t click
that well online, whereas when you meet in-person, all the puzzle pieces fall into place.
VIII.
The good
Now, does this mean that ditching online dating is the best solution for everyone?
Well, although today’s conversation may make online dating sound like a terrible idea,
I think it would be wrongful to categorize it as that, given that there are a lot of
success stories with online dating.
Former colleagues of mine found the love of their lives there, and I know of other couples
who found each other online, too.
It definitely is possible.
Also, for some people, online dating is a great option, and perhaps the only option.
Not everyone lives in a big town or goes to university where meeting people organically
is even possible, and some people are really shy and so having the chance to meet someone
online may be a blessing.
Ultimately, regardless of what I say or of what studies show, no one can really tell
you what the best option is for you.
Only you can decide that.
Alright.
Don’t forget to check out BetterHelp in the description box and also the links for
all the studies mentioned.