In the weeks leading up to Valentine's Day, dating apps typically see a spike in new users and activity . More profiles are created, more messages sent, more swipes logged.
Authors
- Mathieu Lajante
Associate Professor in Marketing, Toronto Metropolitan University
- Sameh Al Natour
Associate Professor, Director, Information Technology Management, Toronto Metropolitan University
Dating platforms market themselves as modern technological solutions to loneliness , right at your fingertips. And yet, for many people, the day meant to celebrate romantic connection feels lonelier than ever .
This, rather than a personal failure or the reality of modern romance, is the outcome of how dating apps are designed and of the economic logic that governs them.
These digital tools aren't simply interfaces that facilitate connection. The ease and expansiveness of online dating have commodified social bonds, eroded meaningful interactions and created a type of dating throw-away culture, encouraging a sense of disposability and distorting decision-making .
The business of modern dating
Online dating apps are big business.
Match Group, a technology company that dominates the online dating sector with an extensive portfolio of dating app products - including Tinder, Hinge, Match.com, OkCupid, Plenty of Fish and OurTime - reported fourth-quarter revenue of US$878 million this month .
Its analysis showed fewer people are paying for its apps, with paying users down five per cent year over year .
The decline appears to reflect a trend prompting the company to develop new artificial intelligence tools to drive user growth and appeal to younger customers. Part of this means converting free users into paying ones.
Dating apps don't sell love. They sell the feeling that it is one premium upgrade away. The platforms aren't primarily designed for users to find love and promptly delete the apps from their phones. They're designed to keep users swiping .
Why swiping never ends
Prolonged uncertainty is profitable. By creating the sense that a better match is always one swipe away users are kept engaged . Design strategies that gamify choice, offer intermittent variable rewards (like a slot machine) and frequent push notifications produce a fear-of-missing-out mentality and can lead to compulsive and addictive patterns of use .
Maximizing user interaction and time spent on the app, and accumulating consumer data turn users into lucrative opportunities for paid features, monthly subscriptions and advertising dollars.
Dating apps market the idea that dating platforms can achieve our social goals more efficiently and more intelligently, meeting a real-world need with a technological solution.
In this system, people are expected to constantly improve and optimize themselves. Paying for added features becomes an investment in oneself, while value is determined by desirability, performance and outcomes.
By creating an interesting profile, crafting witty messages and curating photos and videos of ourselves, we commodify our time and self-worth, reinforcing the idea that we alone are responsible for our success on the apps, even if the playing field is strategically manipulated to keep us on them longer.
So are we being set up to fail? The distinction between failure and success overlooks a key issue: dating apps function as political entities that control access to and distribution of resources .
Changing social reality
Online dating apps sell us hope by exploiting our needs, desires and insecurities . When apps keep hinting that something better is just one more swipe away, they start to reshape our expectations, and even inflate them.
Typically, people employ a decision-making strategy called "satisficer," which refers to both "satisfy" and "suffice." This means we generally choose something that's good enough, rather than searching endlessly for perfection, because of limits on time, information and cognitive energy. In relationship decisions, compatibility used to be enough.
With apps, there's an endless supply of options - endless potential partners, endless possibilities. The issue is that the options feel infinite and, as a result, we're being trained not to be satisfied anymore. Rather, we're encouraged to keep swiping.
The platforms serve as central planners of resource access, production and distribution, offering the information and databases that guide decisions in a global market of potential partners. As a result, human actions are treated as market-based transactions .
Users adopt a consumption mindset in which choosing partners is no different from shopping, constantly comparing others and discarding some in search of the highest-value partner.
Rather than being defined by connection or mutual care, interactions become a question of optimizing our choices. The illusion of oversupply creates the sense that people are replaceable and forces them to compete on superficial standards of beauty or status. Success and desirability on these platforms tend to reinforce existing hierarchies such as class, race and religion.
These tools can also promote a rejection mindset, with users more likely to reject potential partners as the number of options increases , becoming more closed off to romantic opportunities.
Loneliness is a feature, not a flaw
Reducing romantic connection to a commodity weakens social bonds and prioritizes individual success over community, leading to increased isolation and loneliness .
Dating apps are active platforms that prioritize personal preferences and individual strategies rather than addressing structural inequalities or the underlying causes of loneliness.
By fostering a competitive digital environment, these apps encourage disposability and change how people assess and select one another, often resulting in burnout and cynicism.
Users are prompted to view themselves as products to be optimized and others as options to evaluate. Dependence on dating apps to address loneliness ultimately weakens our social bonds and alters how we engage with one another.
Mathieu Lajante is the founder and principal at BomaliQ Inc.
Sameh Al Natour is affiliated with Liberal Party of Canada.
