There are MANY reasons why dating apps are not good for mental health as well as your physical health. First and foremost, A group of psychologists in the Netherlands have discovered that we have a tendency to gradually close ourselves off when dating online. In other words, the more dating profiles people see, the more likely they are to reject them. The study shows that the endless stream of options can increase feelings of dissatisfaction and pessimism about finding a partner, which in turn leads to rejecting potential mates. Thanks to Dating Apps there are more possibilities to meet new partners than ever before, yet at the same time there have never been more people single in western society. This could be simply because the study found that both men and women tend to focus on the picture more than any other part of the online dating profile, but women view each profile for a longer amount of time than men do. Women spend an average of 84 seconds on each profile while the men spent an average 54 seconds on each profile. The male participants made more snap judgments based on a photo, while the female participants displayed a more methodical approach to online dating. But sadly other studies have shown that depression symptoms and

social anxiety are associated with greater use of mobile dating applications among women. If men are judging the women on these apps by appearance, and some women are not “appearing” attractive, then they are not getting too many “swipes.” This is due to the fact that socially anxious people tend to avoid asking others out on dates, fearing that they will be rejected or be negatively evaluated.

While now it might be hard to imagine a world without this virtual matchmaking, in reality these apps are still fresh, which means that studies into the impact they’ve had on our mental health and the studies that have been done over the last five or so years are starting to show that these dating apps don’t bode well for mental well being. Research by psychologist Barry Schwartz in his book, “Paradox of Choice,”has shown that even though we like having more options when making a decision, we are less satisfied with our choice the more options we have. ( which was written in my first book FYI) For users confronted by this seemingly overwhelming array of options you can understand why a reluctance to settle

may develop, especially when a new round of matches are only a swipe away- which is the reason for people staying single longer and not getting into a commuted relationship. What dating apps do to singles is that instead of allowing a connection to happen organically they worry about making a mistake or missing out on the one when the one could be right in front of them. In other terms, singles are looking for perfection which does not exist.

Chapter 2: How Dating Apps and Sites Actually Work ( From The Best Selling Book, Relationship Impossible)

Now that most of the lockdown rules have been lifted, online dating / dating apps are returning to it’s regular scheduled programming, with singles and married folks looking for that one night hook up. But what makes people first, go on a app, and then swipe? Do the apps work against you or for you? The first location-based apps changed that. Grindr was launched in 2009, and it helped single, often anonymously gay men link up by searching for other active users within a specific geographic radius. Then, with the launch of Tinder in 2012, smartphone-owning people of all sexualities could start looking for love, or sex, or casual dating in their area, and it quickly became the most popular platform on the market.

Today, there is no shortage of dating apps available. The most notorious hookup app, especially among the younger folks, remains Tinder, with its popular “swiping” feature: online daters use right or left swipes to “like” or “dislike” photos of other users (if each of you swipes right on the other person — it’s a match). Tinder now reports 1.6 billion swipes and 26 million matches a day. Bumble is America’s second favorite app, and its swiping feature comes with a catch: Anytime there’s a match, only users who identify as women can text first. Some apps like Hinge removed the swiping feature entirely, and instead, users spark a conversation with a person of interest by liking their photo or commenting on a prompt in their profile, such as “a life goal of mine” or “the most spontaneous thing I’ve ever done.”

Kelly, 27, has been using Hinge and Bumble for three years, and says that for her, getting matches is easy. The hard part? “The annoying small talk.” She goes on to say, “Don’t ask me what my favorite color is because I’m going to ghost you.”

And ghosting is made easier with a seemingly bottomless list of potential matches on the apps that can make it seem as if there is always someone better than the current date. If you detect a flaw (no matter how minor) that makes you suddenly lose interest, there are still plenty of suitors awaiting in your phone. The more options you have the more superficial your criteria will be. So, how do these dating apps really work? Since users don’t know which swipe will bring the reward of a match, apps like Tinder use a variable ratio reward schedule, which means that your matches will be randomly dispersed. It’s the same reward system used in slot machines in Las Vegas. Dating sites are in the business of keeping users swiping, looking at their advertisements (on Tinder, you might accidentally swipe right on an ad), and paying monthly fees for extra features that should supposedly make finding matches easier, such as Bumble Boost (which costs up to $25 a month and adds 24 hours to the time users have to break the ice with their match). In the midst of the swiping fever in 2015, Tinder began o limit the amount of daily right swipes to 100 for users who don’t buy into their premium service, Tinder Plus (up to $30 a month). Even though Tinder, OkCupid, eHarmony have managed to keep the secret behind their matchmaking process a

secret, researchers at Cornell University have cracked that can wide open.

These days most online dating apps use their AIalgorithm to match new users on the following factors

initially –

1. The agreeableness level

2. Closeness preference

3. Romantic passion range

4. Extroversion or Introversion level

5. Importance of spirituality

6. The level of optimism or happiness

In addition to these criteria, the algorithm then adds on the new user’s location, height, religion information to draw matches for users. So, you can see that the algorithm polls in all this information and draws in matches that are closest to the new user’s preference. Hence, you can thank math for that lovely date you had last Saturday.

So, technically, yes, there are ways to play with the algorithm but, it is never advised to do so. Because, even if it is preferential dating math, being yourself online is the best way to be. Algorithms of dating apps expect their users to use their applications genuinely. Don’t try

shortcuts. One of the things that all these sites have in common is this: They insert fear that unless you are on theirdating site you will NEVER find your “soul-mate.” They tug at your heartstrings to make you believe that you mate is on the other side of your computer screen. Research done by Villanova University, Northwestern University and Psychological Science in the ublic Interest (PSPI), back this up. Here is a fact: Romantic relationships can begin any time and any where. You can be at school, church, a coffee shop, playing a sport, or be at a friend’s party. Sometimes though people go through stretches where they hit a rut in the romance department and freak out. Most likely when you hit a certain age you freak out more than “usual” because you have relatives, friends and even strangers giving you the sad, pathetic look because you are “single” and that automatically makes you “unhappy” or “lonely.” Lets be honest here, just because you are single doesn’t mean that qualifies you as a lonely, unhappy person, where you are going to now be the next owner of seventy-two cats to compensate for your single-hood.

eHarmony and Match.com claim that their mathematical formula really identify pairs of singles who are especially likely to have a successful romantic relationship. With that said, how do they know how two people will interact once they have been matched? Do they check marital stability and marital satisfaction, not only marriage itself after two people

from their sites get hitched? What are divorce rates for sites Match and eHarmony? Do their claims that “1 in 5 relationships start online,” and “We’ve conducted years of extensive research and know what makes relationships last,” true or are these dating sites all part of an elaborate hoax pulling at a person’s heartstrings? According to Pew Research Center, larger shares of Americans who are currently using dating sites or apps or who have done so in the past year say the experience left them feeling more frustrated (45 percent) than hopeful (28 percent), citing among other things lack of personal and emotional connections, safety concerns,focus on hookups and “too many options.” As an example, the 10 million active daily users of the popular online dating application Tinder are on average presented with 140 partner options a day. While one may expect this drastic increase in mating opportunities to result in an increasing number of romantic relationships, he opposite has occurred.

Online daters indeed became less satisfied with the search proves as the number of profiles they look at get into the hundreds or even thousands. This is called, choice overload where people undermine their ability to make a good, well thought out decision due to having way too many options available to them. This has been proven that when looking through thousands of dating profiles becomes painful, this starts to decrease their level of interest and it might also undermine making a relationship work once offline.

Having extensive choice can have various adverse effects, such as paralysis (i.e., not making any decision at all) and decreased satisfaction . In fact, it seems that people generally experience less benefits when they have more choice. This observation is reminiscent of the basic economic principle of diminishing returns in which each unit that is sequentially added to the production process results in less profits.

There is some evidence that having more choice in the domain of dating also has negative consequences. For example, when asked to pick the best partner, access to more partner profiles resulted in more searching, more time spent on evaluating bad choice options, and a lower likelihood of selecting the option with the best personal fit. Likewise, when a choice set increases, people end up being less satisfied with their ultimate partner choice and more prone to reverse their decision. The adverse effects of choice overload are also mentioned in articles in popular media mentioning phenomena such as “Tinder fatigue” or “dating burnout”

Study after study found that online dating will set off a rejection mind-set, leading people to become increasingly likely to reject partners to the extent that they have been presented with more options.

Every dating site has an algorithm that they use in matching people together. It is not “fate” that helps you meet the person, it is artificial intelligence. Do scientific algorithms — including those used by sites like eHarmony, PerfectMatch and Chemistry to match people according to similarities — can really lead to better and more lasting relationships? The answer is no. There are certain properties of online dating that actually work against love-seekers, the researchers found, making it no more effective than traditional dating for finding a happy

relationship. eHarmony’s system is flawed because it relies on conclusions from married couples and a fundamental premise that similar people will be happy together in the

long-term. But married couples often project similarities onto one another and adopt similar interests over time, so those are the results of a relationship rather than what inspires them in the first place. Match and the other apps use the same type of recommendation system used by Netflix or Facebook, taking your past behaviors (and the behavior of others)

into account to predict what you’ll like next. To understand how many dating app algorithms work, it’s useful to compare them to Netflix. The streaming service’s “trending now” category surfaces content other people enjoy. Many dating app algorithms work similarly, surfacing profiles popular with other users. The problem is a popular profile isn’t the same thing as a good individual match. Netflix also relies on users with similar viewing histories to generate content suggestions. Dating apps do the same thing, surfacing profiles based on other people’s swipe habits. If you swiped right on Harry and Sally swiped right on Harry, you might like someone else Sally swiped right on. Once again, the algorithms aren’t tailored to individual users, but lumping people together in a fairly superficial manner. Algorithms can take into account how frequently you log on, how often you swipe right, how you strike up a conversation, and even how often you exchange numbers. Users often self-sabotage without even realizing it. On Bumble, if you simply say “Hi,’ Bumble learns that you’re not making an effort, so it sets you back a notch. Before you know it, the algorithm makes a ton of bad assumptions based on your behavior and you’re stuck in a never-ending cycle of undesirable matches. Despite longer questionnaires and bios, matchmaking sites like OkCupid aren’t any better. The truth is none of these sites really has any idea what they’re doing— otherwise they’d have a monopoly on the market. { Source: Wired / BBC / Vox}

And it gets worse from here: One study published in Science Advances found that among men who use dating apps, when deciding on what kind of woman they want to date many will choose a woman younger than them rather than a peer their own age. The study found that a when it came to age women typically found men up to the age of 50 very desirable. On the other hand most men only found women desirable up to the age of…. 18. (Yikes!)

Considering that women who are 18 are just one year up from being a teenager it’s a little bit concerning and creepy. Not only are the findings of the research disheartening or women genuinely trying to date through these apps but it is also majorly concerning that so many men across different apps and sites are messaging teenagers. { Source: Discover / Her / }

New research from William Chopik, an associate professor in the Michigan State University Department of Psychology, and Dr. David Johnson from the University of Maryland, finds that people’s reason for swiping right is based primarily on attractiveness and the race of a potential partner, and that decisions are often made in less than a second. While attractiveness played a major role in participants’ decisions to swipe left or right, race was another leading factor. Users were significantly more likely to swipe on users within their same race.

A growing body of research suggests that readers of your profile assess your attentiveness and intelligence based on grammar, spelling, and typos. Two recent studies analyzed the roles played by writing in online profiles. While this plays a small factor, a lot of people try to claim that if you post good pictures, have a good headline, have a well written profile and write a lot of people you’ll do well. Yes, good pictures help, but you have to have a certain level of appealing looks for those pictures to work. Here’s the reason why pictures are 99.99% the reason people swipe right or left. First: On (most definitely all) dating websites and dating apps the first thing that a prospective partner has the chance to see about you is your face. Your profile picture to be more accurate. Not your interests, not the schools you went to, not the travels you made. It will be your photo. Second: NO ONE, in the history of online dating as ever said “I don’t find him (or her) particularly attractive, but I will check the rest of his profile to see if I feel a connection with him through his interests, life philosophy, past experiences, etc.” Third: If they like your profile picture enough they will check the rest of your profile as well BUT they will start with the other pictures. And only after checking all of them and deciding that you are attractive enough, will they check the rest of your profile.

You can continue reading HOW dating apps get you to buy into the idea that the only way you can meet someone work, why you should NOT be using dating apps and HOW to meet people, and how the NFL players use this app, among other dating topics, in my best selling book “Relationship Impossible”