Games of Love
The feeling of loneliness is an emotion pervasive in the human experience. It is the fundamental longing of man to strive for deep interpersonal relationships, and such a goal is often difficult or unobtainable in an increasingly modern society. For as much as the world shrinks, as the hurdles of geography, language, and culture fade under the inevitable march of technological process, it is no controversial opinion that meeting people can feel harder now than it ever had. The solution to such a problem, as proposed by a plethora of different corporations, is the dating app.
While over 1,500 online dating services currently exist, a large majority of them operate in a very similar way. These apps are optimized for mobile devices, prioritizing visual stimuli and primarily displaying photos of individual users over other forms of communication. They are built around short profiles so as to reduce the average time spent before making a decision, with all information received about a person being simplified to a binary output: the decision to send or not send some sort of digital token of interest or in some cases, a short message to indicate reciprocation.
This oversimplification and gamification of the process of interpersonal connection can add significant stress to an activity that is already incredibly emotionally volatile for participants, and this volatility can have damaging effects on both men and women who use these services. Women often find themselves overwhelmed with the amount of messages received, along with unsolicited sexual images and messages, rude comments, and threats of violence at rates two to three times as high as men. Women are also more likely to find dating apps unsafe, fearing the inherent danger involved with meeting with a stranger. Men, on the other hand, are far more likely than women to report insecurity as a result of a lack of messages or matches, with over half of men feeling as though they receive fewer messages than they would like to receive. While differences in sex play an important role in understanding the impact that dating apps have on mental health, it is clear that the majority of the adverse outcomes affect users regardless of their identity. Those who use dating apps regularly are three times more likely to be psychologically distressed in some way than those who do not. Users of online dating services are also two times as likely to report symptoms of depression and 1.5 times as likely to report symptoms of anxiety. Forty-five percent of dating app users report feeling more frustrated than hopeful in online dating, and 35 percent report feeling pessimistic about the ability of these apps to produce positive outcomes.
While the companies behind most online dating services are fully aware of the negative mental health outcomes associated with continued use of their platforms, measures to mitigate these issues have yet to be taken, with business models actively being developed to take advantage of the insecurities of their users. Platforms like Hinge and Tinder, while free to use, advertise several tiers of subscription-based memberships. These paid options provide benefits that are aimed at targeting specific problems dealt with by users. For women receiving an overwhelming amount of likes, a Tinder Gold subscription can solve this issue by allowing them to see all of their likes simultaneously instead of having to go through them one at a time, all for only $25 a month. For men who do not feel like they are receiving enough likes or matches, a HingeX subscription can give a boost by allowing them to send unlimited likes, showing their profile to more accounts in greater frequency, and prioritizing their likes over those from free accounts in the inboxes of recipients, all for $25 per week. These companies clearly understand the ways in which their services make their users feel insecure and powerless; however, instead of bridging this gap and modifying their applications, they have manipulated the emotions of their users for profit, hijacking their vulnerability for monetary gain.
So why are dating apps so commonly used? Why is it that platforms shown time and time again to lead to stress, anxiety, and depression, owned by companies looking to abuse the mental health of their users for profit, report all-time high usage, with over half of US adults under the age of 29 reporting previous or current usage of these dating services? The driving force behind the prevalence of dating apps in modern society is the proposed “goal” of it all. For all of the consumption, stimulation, and entertainment of a post-industrial society, the emotional significance of real and honest interpersonal connections cannot be artificially replicated. The modernity and consumption of society today overwhelmingly prioritize the quantitative over the qualitative, with dating apps acting as society’s way of transferring the complex emotional landscapes of love, sex, and human connection into the quantitative realm of late-stage capitalism. The deepest vulnerabilities of man are transmuted into a simplified game of numbers, a game of luck or skill, a seemingly free slot machine with a jackpot of lifelong happiness that is bound to pay out after enough tries. Dating apps exist to damage those who use them, commodifying the most meaningful interactions and powerful emotions to harness and manipulate the desires and insecurities of man into profit models. The most difficult and most rewarding journey of the human experience has been reduced to a mobile application; however, it still does exist. It exists outside of online dating services. It exists in the real world, within community, and within people. While it is becoming increasingly difficult to meet people in person without the medium of a device, the risk is worth the reward, and the ends justify the means. To meet, like, and love is a coordination of efforts on all fronts. It is a complex dance and one that is best performed face to face, in the way man was made to participate.
Written by Nathan Brooks, Photography: Nicole Hinojosa, Social Media: Eliana Ho, Videography: Antonio Gutierrez