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Andrea Gil has “swept” Tinder. She puts it like the dating app is a video game. A 36-year-old from Madrid, she flips through profiles at a feverish pace, moving her fingers with the dexterity of a pianist: left, right, left, right. Until there is none left. Then a message will appear saying, “There are no more singles in your area.” Game is over. The phrase is apt not only for its ingenuity, but also because dating apps are becoming more and more like video games.
A study from Stanford University in the US found that 39% of heterosexual couples and 60% of same-sex couples meet through dating apps. And one in five couples who married in Spain in 2019 met online, according to the wedding platform Bodas.net. On the plus side, this means it’s now easier to meet someone without being introduced by friends or going to a nightclub. Connecting is faster and within everyone’s reach. But there are also side effects. One is the gamification of dating, a way of wrapping the search for a partner in game dynamics to keep the user on the platform.
The problem lies in the mechanics of the app. In order to connect with and talk to a partner, Tinder asks the user to swipe the candidates’ profiles one way or the other, accept or reject them, in an almost endless carousel of candidates. According to several studies, Tinder has 57 million users in 190 countries who together swipe 1.5 billion profiles per day. The photos are reviewed in the same way as chrome cards in the schoolyard. This one does, this one doesn’t. That is why many users refer to the constant search for matches as ‘collecting chrome’.
“I’m not unhappy with these apps,” says Gil, who has used nearly all of them for the past seven years, “but I think there have been times when I’ve felt addicted. It creates an addiction that keeps you searching — rather from talking to people, you keep scrolling through profiles, it’s just something I do mechanically, when I’m on the subway, or watching TV, or in my spare time.”
Gil is not unusual. One in six singles admit to being addicted to the matchmaking process, according to a 2017 report from Match, the parent company of the dating apps Tinder, OKCupid, Pairs and Hinge. But the addictive factor doesn’t affect everyone equally. Millennials are 125% more likely to become addicted than previous generations and men, 97% more than women. What is concerning is that this effect is not random; rather, it has been deliberately and carefully designed to produce this result.
The so-called infinite swipe is a mechanism similar to the one used by social networks such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, in which case it is the infinite scroll, to engage the user with endless posts. “It has been found that this system triggers the secretion of dopamine, causing a degree of addiction,” says California psychologist Alina Liu. “What happens in our brains with these apps is very similar to what happens with slots or slot machines.”
It is a variable reinforcement program where a reward floats on the horizon. “The hope of this reward, in this case a match, motivates us to keep swiping,” added Liu. The problem is, with dating apps, the reward isn’t seeing an interesting message, or even three red cherries and a pile of change. It’s physical confirmation, a possible date and, who knows, maybe the love of your life. Pressing those emotional buttons allows apps to make a lot of money. Tinder told EL PAÍS that free users can only accept 20 candidates per day and that the business model is not based on user retention, but on the user opting for a paid account.
In any case, it is a model that works. Match Group reported $3 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2022. Tinder has 163 million premium users, making it the most profitable lifestyle app in the world, according to the company’s own data.
“These apps have taken dating through a capitalist filter and turned it into an addictive game,” says Liu. “The problem lies in their business model: they monetize through subscriptions and ads, so their profit is tied to users swiping left and right on their platform all day.” Therefore, they are constantly looking for new features to keep the user on the app. Recently, Tinder has added playful features such as Swipe Night, an interactive mechanism that prompts the user to make moral choices – save the girl and risk your life or run away from danger – that could affect who they contact in the future. to make. Gamification is becoming more apparent and is being justified by the company as a way to get to know Gen Z preferences better. “They’re constantly seducing you and telling you to keep going, persevere,” explains Gil.
But while apps can use features to try and keep the user hooked, the user has the final say. The problem is not only in the algorithm or the design of the app, it is in the personality of the user or their environment. “For me, the emotional discomfort in the person who develops the addiction is clearly more relevant,” says psychologist Paloma Salamanca Iniesta. “We are constantly surrounded by addictive substances and experiences – tobacco, coffee, gambling – but we usually don’t get sucked into them unless we go through a moment of particular psychological vulnerability.”
According to a report by dating app Badoo based on data from its 370 million users, a millennial spends an average of 90 minutes a day on it. These time frames can add up tremendously if the person is going through a rough patch or develops a degree of dependence.
Apps don’t always take advantage of vulnerability. Several are adopting digital wellness measures. Bumble regularly releases posts to its users to minimize the negative impact dating apps can have on their self-esteem. “Our app has a number of features that put mental health and self-care at the forefront, such as the Snooze feature, which gives you the ability to pause your activity and come back when you’re ready,” says Naomi Walkland, Bumble’s vice president for Europe. Thursday goes one step further. This app is only active one day a week and is based on creating events in bars and encouraging meetings outside the platform.
However, the general trend is to maximize the user’s time on the app and get them to subscribe to paid models to increase profits. The search for love in the digital world is inextricably linked with the search for profit. “Tinder is an emotional techno-commodity – that is, a commodity that offers emotions and uses technology,” French-Israeli sociologist Eva Illouz told EL PAÍS a few months ago. “And it’s an emotional techno-commodity that is profoundly changing current forms of socialization.”
The rise of Tinder, and all the apps that followed, radically changed the way people search for a partner. “They influence the dating landscape and modern couples in many ways,” says Dr. Liu. But which ways these are has yet to be determined. “Do couples become more homogeneous when they meet through carefully selected filters, with overlapping educational views, political views and financial situations?” Liu wonders. “Do dating apps make it harder to find love, given the plethora of options at your fingertips and the paralysis when it comes to choosing those causes?”
It will probably take us years to answer these questions, as they raise complex questions in hitherto unexplored scenarios. What seems clear is that the way we meet people has changed forever. The writer José Luis Alvite would say that dating is the social packaging of what is nothing more than an instinct. In recent years, another layer has been added, a technological, playful and capitalistic layer that makes dating something exciting and addictive. Until it ceases to exist.
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