The Dating Game
In the modern age of dating, one of the things that has become increasingly clear is that app-based “swipe” style online dating is here to stay. But why has this become so popular in preference to other styles of online dating, such as the more traditional “classified” type?
Part of this is down to psychology and the way our brains tend to work. Instead of being presented with a large number of options simultaneously to browse, swipe apps present you with a single option and some choices that essentially boil down to either yes, or no. It then repeats that pattern over and over again.
So what exactly is the game here?
The game is the app itself. Instead of presenting all possible options at the same time, the process is simplified, limiting the potential for a user to end up stuck and unable to decide on who they like. By taking the approach of presenting a single option with a choice of yes or no, a rapid repeating cycle is established instead.
In psychological terms, this is known as a “schedule of reinforcement”, wherein a behaviour is conditioned and reinforced through repetition along with either positive or negative reinforcement through reward or punishment. In the case of dating apps, the positive reinforcement is the dopamine hit that gets released in the brain when a match is successful.
In addition to that, there is also a related but highly effective positive reinforcement that relies on self-esteem. This takes the form of the app either sending a notification or otherwise letting the user know when others have indicated interest in them from an attempted match. Such notifications reinforce (or if absent, can negatively impact) self-esteem for users by essentially telling the user “Hey! People like you!”, thus fulfilling and validating the person’s sense of self. Typically the apps will limit the visibility of those potential matches unless on a premium plan, in order to keep people engaged and swiping to try and find out who the potential match is.
Now, I’m not qualified in any sort of psychology, educational or voluntary, but there are some aspects of these apps which are startlingly similar to another technology that is frequently associated with substantial negative social outcomes.
Both these technologies use a schedule of reinforcement, with rapid repetition to condition their users and ensure they keep playing the game. Both technologies draw users in with promises of a chance at a desirable outcome through bright advertising and encouraging messaging, despite these desirable outcomes being relatively rare. Both encourage greater success through expenditure of more money, and both technologies steadfastly avoid making a big deal about failures or losses.
I am of course talking about poker machines (or slot machines, depending on where you’re from).
The game in both cases is no different, just that with poker machines the point is to win money, instead of human contact. The swipe style dating apps even present themselves as an easy, fun way to date in the modern age, and most importantly, they certainly ARE fun…. At least at first.
So what does this mean for dating app users?
It means that to an extent, swipe style dating apps are likely to be addictive, as they operate on the same principles as a type of gambling which is well known to be addictive. In addition, the typical target user base can already be emotionally vulnerable through harm from previous failed relationships, lack of emotional fulfillment or just plain old loneliness.
Such apps can temporarily fill a gap in the lives of such users, either by providing validation, or by providing a sense that they stand a chance of alleviating their loneliness… Along with triggering regular releases of dopamine to help them feel good!
The problem here is that the use of these apps brings about a very effective type of behavioural conditioning. As much as the person is playing the dating game on swipe apps, the game is playing them too, programming into them that the app will provide what they’re looking for, then reinforcing it with an enormous amount of repetition to the point that some users end up more attached to the apps than they can ever become to anyone they end up matching with on those same apps.
I’ve certainly seen it in my years of using the apps (as I expect you, the reader has too), people who match but then don’t talk, or people who throw away a brand new start of a relationship because of something relatively insignificant that didn’t go exactly how they might have imagined it… I’ve even heard of people being broken up with because they wore the wrong kind of shoes when meeting up for a date!
Is this by design? Why would they do this?
From the very start of using pretty much any of the swipe style dating apps, the options shown are typically from the top tier of potential matches. These are the profiles which both match the user’s filters (such as age, orientation, location) and which also garner the highest level of attempted matches from potential partners.
The intent here is to draw in users by presenting the best or most desirable options to them first, giving the new user the impression that they stand a chance of matching with them. The fact that these people are popular does not necessarily mean there is a high chance of a match, if anything the opposite is true as these top-tier users all have their own limits when it comes to dating, and the greater their options, the more picky they can afford to be.
Aside from providing an attractive drawcard, presenting these users first also helps establish expectations for the new user. Everyone has their own desires and expectations of course, but when it comes to the dating app game, it doesn’t necessarily mean that these expectations are realistic. If anything, it is in the interest of such apps to ensure the expectations are at least partly unrealistic, because matching users happily to the point they cease being users is actually bad for business.
How is matching people bad for business?
In the realm of online dating apps, one of the questions that comes up fairly frequently is “what is the product?”
Although it seems simple on the surface, this question actually has a rather complex answer. Some would argue the product in this case is the offering of a dating service, but it isn’t like picking products off a shelf. The service itself is actually bringing people together who are all interested in dating, so the apps are more akin to the shelves on which the products sit. It is another type of social networking, just with a specific intent.
This brings us back to the actual product. In the dating world, the products are people.
For a dating app to be effective, it needs to offer a comprehensive and diverse range of people, and the more users there are on the app, the more comprehensive the range is… Therefore the more desirable it is to other users to join up as well and the more likely they are to hang around.
This brings us back to matching. If the core principle of the app is to match people for hookups, flings or very short term encounters, then matching people isn’t particularly harmful to the business, so long as those matches have an outcome that the people involved are happy with. This is how Tinder started out, and in part why it was and continues to be so successful. The key in this case is that these users are essentially repeat customers who keep coming back, and as a result allow the app in question to maintain a large and visible userbase to sell to other users.
However, not everyone is necessarily looking for that kind of matching experience. Those who are looking for a deeper, more meaningful or long term lasting relationship will often be more picky about their matches, however should they find the person they’re looking for, they typically will leave the app entirely and not return. This effectively removes the product (person) from the metaphorical shelf, and the app starts losing both the userbase and its ability to attract new users at the same time. To compound the problem for the app, it also loses a pair of eyeballs to advertise other non-dating products and services to, and a potential source of direct revenue through subscription services.
It takes a lot of money just to run the IT infrastructure to support such apps, let alone the payroll required to retain the human talent such as programmers, marketing teams and more, so irrespective of any altruistic aims that dating apps may have when they start out, eventually it all comes down to extracting money from users.
Making money…
Many dating apps present themselves as being free to use, with various subscription models to unlock additional features and functions, or to increase the visibility of a subscribed user’s profile to other users. So how do they make money when so many users stick to the free tiers?
There are a wide variety of ways to monetise people and their details. One is through targeted advertising direct to users of the apps, while another is to sell aggregated data to other third parties for market research purposes. Such information is highly valuable to all sorts of businesses, as it allows them to identify emerging trends in markets across the globe, broken down into specific age brackets. Once these are known, new products can be developed and tested against the same audiences. The same information can also be used by large investment institutions to identify good or not so good investment opportunities as well, such as which types of businesses single people engage with.
Another way people can be monetised is through the nature of the app itself. As previously mentioned, a dating app with few or no users isn’t much use to any new users, so there is an inherent value to each and every user who signs up and provides themselves as another option for other users.
Cyclical, or recurrent enshittification
As anyone who has been around the internet long enough knows, there is a boom and bust cycle that tends to affect the technology sector and industry as a whole. That cycle tends to loop, often starting with a disruption to the status quo where one or more new entities emerge with a new or different way of doing something. That may come about due to new technology (eg smartphones becoming common), through changes in social behaviour (such as people becoming more comfortable with communicating online), or even rarely through a revolutionary way of achieving something that was previously far more complex and time consuming.
The next step in the loop is typically a growth and diversification phase. The initial disruptor establishes itself and other people take notice and attempt to copy or improve on the new idea in order to compete. At this point a whole range of slightly different versions of the same sort of thing will usually pop up and enter the market, and large amounts of venture capital will be thrown around, along with huge business valuations. Eventually the number of different but similar ventures reaches a point that they’re no longer able to sustain themselves without cannibalising each other, and a new phase of consolidation starts to take place.
This consolidation phase can be gradual, but more often than not they tend to be quite sudden and catastrophic, brought about when the venture capital money begins to run out. As ventures begin to collapse they either get bought out by more resilient ventures, or collapse and shake market confidence to the point that other previously safe ventures suffer a loss of capital and begin to collapse as well. Whatever the cause and pace of consolidation, by the end of the phase a much smaller number of ventures are left standing, often with a more jaded and cynical set of users and investors.
In time, things stabilise and a new status quo is established… Up until another disruption emerges and the loop repeats.
This brings us to swipe style dating apps. In the last few years, we’ve begun to enter the consolidation phase. Venture capitalists and other large investors have put their money into growing various ventures and are now looking to extract a profit. Simultaneously the founders of these businesses are starting to look at how to turn their equity into cold hard cash, such as through IPOs, and the business focus begins to shift away from “how can we provide a great user experience?” and more towards “how can we monetise our users?”
The change of focus from their core principles of connecting people to making money from those people (ie enshittification) means the apps lose focus on the very thing that drew users to their platform in the first place. For dating apps, which depend on having users to get more users, this is a very dangerous situation to get into because once they start leaving, the chance of recovering them starts to drop as well, and a competitor can easily step in to capture the attention of those users instead.
Can we do anything about this?
Honestly, probably not. The only way to win this particular game is not to play, and online dating is already so well established in society that it is incredibly unlikely to disappear any time soon. However, there are some measures users of these apps can take to protect their own mental health. Firstly, it is important to recognise the addictive aspects of swipe style dating apps, not only in yourself, but also in other users of these apps that you might encounter.
Secondly, it can be helpful to recognise the manipulations the apps use on their users. Take for example the tendency for many of the swipe style apps to show more desirable options to users when you’ve gone a length of time without opening or using the app. You can test this yourself quite easily by simply taking a week off from one or more of the swipe apps, then reviewing the types of possible matches you are presented with when you open them again, or by deleting and creating an entirely new profile with a different device and/or phone number and email address.
Finally, if you find yourself swiping away without any real conscious reason to do so, consider taking a break instead. If necessary, seek professional help from a mental health specialist, or trying completely different approaches to dating (such as offline!)
Some closing thoughts
For me at least, dating apps are sort of like the unexpected offspring of social networks coupled with online gambling, and while they reflect the unpleasant qualities of both, they also fulfill the needs of a huge number of people. To some, that might represent a necessary evil, especially when taking into account the often negative experiences people have when using them. Whatever they may represent, they’re clearly not going to go away and the real future differentiator will likely involve ways of limiting these negative experiences to avoid user attrition, potentially by using AI systems to monitor conversations and interactions as an additional data point for matching people up or removing them from the platform.
For now at least, the dating game can be played with these apps and many people are still giving it a try, but it requires resilience and awareness, lest the apps end up playing you instead!