On Valentine’s Day this year, a lawsuit was brought by six people in the US against Match Group, the company behind dating apps such as Tinder, Hinge and Match. The suit blames dating apps for game-like tactics that, they say, contribute to addictive behaviour, making miserable swiping addicts of us all.
Match Group denies this, calling the claims “ridiculous”. But anyone who, like me, has spent years on and off the apps knows that there are clear parallels between love algorithms and online gaming – only with dating apps, we are the commodities.
Addiction may have been baked into these apps from creation. Tinder’s co-founder confessed to being inspired by psychology experiments on pigeons. Experts have highlighted how the gamification of dating apps releases neurochemicals such as dopamine and serotonin, which are responsible for boosting your mood, into the brain. It’s unsurprising, then, that dating apps can feel so addictive.
As the lawsuit claims, we’re being programmed to constantly seek a dopamine hit from each swipe in what it calls a “pay-to-play” loop. That’s probably why the “most compatible” feature on Hinge always brings up someone you likely couldn’t see yourself with in a million years, and why when it’s time to delete the apps, you’re offered alternatives such as “freeze your account” or “reset”.
Dating apps are profit-driven, not powered by love, community or kindness. Yet even though most of us know the pitfalls we still choose to participate, even at the cost of our mental health.
Dating app addiction has wreaked havoc on my life, and on those of my friends in their late 20s and early 30s. Apps, in my view, are responsible for entrenching a very particular physical “type” I look for when I am dating, which I think is dangerous and reductive.
They have also cost me time and money. In my mid-20s, when outsourcing love to the algorithm still felt thrilling and not at all nausea-inducing, I would pay for premium features on Hinge (“more likes”) or Tinder (“rewind” swipes), only for my investment to come to nothing (selling premium subscriptions is the cornerstone of most apps’ business models).
Last year, I became concerned when one 30-year-old female friend bounced between a series of failed casual relationships on Hinge, but refused to stop using it. “Am I addicted? Yes,” she says bluntly when I ask her about her usage. “Has my mental health been affected by them? Yes. I plummeted into the depths of depression last year. I felt as if men were seeing me solely as a commodity.”
I can relate. In the past, app use affected my usually self-assured demeanour. I recall matching with men who, after exchanging phone numbers, immediately demanded that I send them more photos on WhatsApp. I would refuse but often wonder about their motive – didn’t they trust who I said I was on my profile? And who has the time for all this?
The very notion of romantic love (and gender roles) has undergone a radical transformation since my parent’s generation. Women have enjoyed a sexual revolution and there has been a total rethinking of the economic rationale behind partnership, but also, I would argue, a breakdown in basic respect and communication – thanks in part to dating app culture.
Nobody knows what they want, how long they want it for, or how to ask for it. Having a digital smörgåsbord of global partners at our fingertips convinces us there’s always a better option if we just keep on looking.
Even if you’re not on the apps, as a single person they are always looming large, threatening like a dark cloud on the horizon. I deleted all my apps in 2023, but I recently attended the wedding of a close friend who met their partner on Tinder. Drunk on a cocktail of champagne and hope, I had a fleeting thought: “Should I give the dating apps another go?” Then there’s all the Hinge horror stories you hear down the pub. That viral 60-part TikTok dating series. The threads and thinkpieces about how to avoid dating a narcissist, or a cheapskate or a murderer.
I might have deleted the apps, but most of the men I date haven’t. I’ll likely come into contact with more people who have spent the best part of a decade reducing others to 2D pixels on a six-inch screen. How we treat each other on dating apps will indirectly affect us all, whether we like it or not.
So swipe, don’t swipe, whatever – just don’t put all your eggs in Match’s basket, or take the dating algorithm seriously. Because it’s clear that these apps are definitely not taking your dating dreams seriously, either.
