The following piece is an opinion and does not reflect the views of The Eagle and its staff. All opinions are edited for grammar, style and argument structure and fact-checked, but the opinions are the writer’s own.
The game of choice for the night is Tinder. Hinge prompts are too silly to read, and Bumble is fun to send messages, but it’s the kind of night where everyone’s attention spans are just too short for anything besides swiping.
Gathered around the glowing blue light like a cult around a candle, friends discuss whether to swipe left or right, message or not to message. With every swipe, the profiles start to blur, and each is forgotten as a better one appears. In the moment, it truly feels like a game — instead of real people, these profiles are simply characters in a 2D world, defined only by their looks and bios.
There are over 75 million active users for Tinder, over 28 million for Hinge and over 58 million for Bumble, according to Business of Apps. The profiles on these dating apps almost seem infinite, making some of us forget or overlook that each of these profiles are real people with feelings. With the tricks and games that come with dating apps — created to find “the one” or just a casual partner — the apps may instead ruin users’ perceptions of others by disregarding the humanity behind these profiles.
The repetitive icebreaker questions and the infinite profiles available at hand have turned online dating into mindless swiping, or a version of zombie scrolling. The McAfee Security Company defines zombie scrolling as scrolling with no purpose in mind, without taking in much, if any, of what we see. This is obviously harmful to an individual on social media or a website, but entirely losing attention on an app where the entire premise relies on being attentive to find an individual defeats the purpose and is frankly terrifying. The only solution is to delete dating apps entirely or be completely transparent and communicative with your intentions.
The inevitable disconnect between profiles happens in one of two ways: through online disinhibition — acting differently online than you do in person, hiding behind the safety of a screen — or by becoming victim to mindless swiping due to the access to endless users. Although being expressive and open about intentions on a dating app is scary and vulnerable, it humanizes yourself and other users, making it easier to avoid the disconnect between users.
Just like on social media, where influencer comment sections are filled with hate, those hate comments can be translated into harmful games, ghosting or plain cruel jokes on dating apps. It has become yet another platform where those on the other end of the screen do not seem real, and therefore, what we say or act to these “characters” online doesn’t seem to have much consequence. It is bad enough to join in on a hate train with others towards certain influencers whose lives feel far away and disconnected from ours, but our ability to act similarly to people we choose to match with and are literally close by is alarming.
While the company algorithms are definitely to blame, with their addictive platforms designed to keep users engaged and on the app, acknowledging this reality and its harmful effects is a start to solve the issue. In an article from National Geographic, Kathryn Coduto, an assistant professor of media science at Boston University, said that dating apps are companies with the goal to keep users on their applications to make money. Even small details such as a swipe is meant to make the apps more “game-like.” As new dating apps with these features emerge more, it is more important than ever to actively work against these patterns by being more honest, communicative and a little more vulnerable about your feelings to show your humanity.
Even if we are more aware and attentive of the people we swipe on, the nature of online dating makes it difficult to grasp the reality of these profiles, making it harder to escape the cycle.
That being said, although it is easier to solely blame the dating app system, it is also important to reflect on one’s own use. Dating apps can give a sudden rush of dopamine and excitement when receiving a match, but that is not always healthy. Dopamine detoxes — breaking the cycle of the brain’s reward system — is one recommendation for healthier use of dating apps. Being mindful of using it in moderation, not projecting your insecurities onto others, striving for more genuine conversations and recognizing the harmful effects it can potentially have can help break the pattern.
It is important to acknowledge, however, that some people do find their matches on dating apps, despite thinking of it like a game. “I also think [Tinder is] a game, and that, I’ve just like swiped for fun. If I was bored on TikTok, I would just start swiping on a dating app instead. I wasn’t expecting to find someone on there either,” said Molly Reed, a junior at American University who met her current boyfriend on a dating app.
People like Reed give a sliver of hope to the singles still on the treacherous journey of finding their match on these dating sites. Maybe romance still exists, and meaningful connections are still possible, but at what cost?
Despite these problems being the result of the nature of the app system and the infinite number of profiles online, it is still concerning how these apps have made us unable to recognize these personalized profiles with specific information as unique individuals before losing attention. The normalization of “zombie scrolling” or online disinhibition, despite each person being real behind the screen, has a detrimental effect on our mental health by cutting down the empathy we have for others. Unless all users on dating apps collectively begin to recognize this and act against it, these symptoms of the dating app epidemic will not go away. Making sure that you have the emotional maturity and correct mindset to be able to communicate your goals is crucial. If that is not the case and you catch yourself developing a warped perception of other users, it may be time to take a break from dating apps for a while.
It is beautiful and even romantic to find the match out of millions of people on apps that are deemed hopeless by some, but it is undoubtedly a difficult feat. Through the process of it all, perceptions of others can be ruined entirely, making it ever so important to take a step back to reevaluate your actions, acknowledge the addictive game-like tendencies of the system and keep in mind the detrimental effects dating apps can have.
Sara Shibata is a junior in the School of Public Affairs and School of Communication and a columnist for The Eagle.
This piece was edited by Alana Parker, Rebeca Samano Arellano and Abigail Turner. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks and Charlie Mennuti.
