Are online dating apps changing relationships for the better or worse?
I was talking to a colleague of mine the other day who recalled a date she had been on with someone she met over eHarmony, an online dating service. She is a divorcee in her forties and admitted that with her busy work-life schedule the odds of finding a potential suitor were far greater scrolling through thousands of online profiles than the odd chance she got to mingle with others in a pub, club or park, for instance, a view echoed by Toma (2015) and Henry-Waring & Barrket (2018). I myself am happily married and was introduced to my wife through mutual friends; according to Toma (2015) this is nowadays considered the orthodox way. As such, I don’t have any first-hand experience when it comes to these online dating apps. It turns out that in Australia alone, around 3.5 million people use the Tinder app, 1200 singles register with the RSVP matchmaking website every day and since 2007, around 11,000 Australian marriages have been attributed to eHarmony. The Internet — no matter which device you choose to access it from — is radicalising the formation and nature of relationships (Henry-Waring & Barraket 2018).
When I think of online dating apps, however, I cannot help but associate them with the notorious tinder date that went horrifyingly wrong: in 2014 New Zealander Warriena Wright plunged from the apartment balcony of her tinder-date, Gable Tostee (Goldsworthy 2016). Don’t get me wrong, I can understand how the online dating system is proving the saving grace for individuals who identify as time-limited, introverted, socially-awkward, unconfident and/or wanting to broaden their dating ‘options’ or venture out of their ‘comfort-zone’ (Toma 2015, p. 2). However, it seems that Sales (2015b) was justified when she explained that online dating apps were promoting a misogynistic, sexist culture in what ought to be a progressive society. In America, only 39% of relationships established through online dating apps have resulted in marriage or committed relationships; unfortunately, the remaining 61% comprise flings, casual sexual hook-ups, crude requests for ‘nude pics’ or being sent disturbing, unsolicited pics of the genitalia, unwanted and graphic requests for (commonly quick) sexual encounters and worse, instances of sexual violence and harassment (Gillet 2018, pp. 212–213). Females are overwhelmingly at the receiving end of the derogatory and degrading requests, remarks and sexual abuse. Tragically, complaints forwarded to the companies managing these dating apps go ignored, despite the prevalence of the #MeToo movement. The fact that the culpability of mobile and online dating apps is not on par with other mainstream corporations is highly questionable and dangerous (Sales 2015a; Yoon et. al 2020).
The interviewee recounts featured in Sales’ (2015a) article are very pejorative so I will not repeat them here but I strongly urge others to read it: https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/08/tinder-hook-up-culture-end-of-dating. Importantly, the experiences of Sales’ (2015a) interviewees are not standalone and indeed reflected in the online dating scene all over the world (Gillet 2018; Yoon et. al 2020). You may consider me unorthodox or old-fashioned or in need of ‘getting with the times’ but I believe that when it comes to forming and maintaining relationships, these online dating services are turning relationships into sinking ships (Toma 2015, p. 1). In a world where we have become so fixated on the world-wide-web, don’t you think relationships should be formed by meeting people, not looking down at a screen? Do you too find it ironic that online dating apps are actually decreasing social interactions that occur face-to-face? Is it not concerning that the so-called ‘relationships’ springing from online dating apps are proving counterproductive to domestic violence campaigns and those that promote respect for women? Do you not agree that the ‘online’ domain is allowing men to say and request things from women that they wouldn’t dare say in person (or vice versa) and worse, allowing them to get away with it? In my opinion, we better close the floodgates in this online dating world before it is too late.
REFERENCES:
Gillet, R 2018, ‘Intimate intrusions online: Studying the normalisation of abuse in dating apps’, Women’s Studies International Forum, vol. 69, no. 1, pp. 212–219, viewed 28 June 2021, SAGE Journals database, DOI 10.1016/j.wsif.2018.04.005.
Goldsworthy, T 2016, ‘Gable Tostee case: How common is death by falling?’ The Conversation, 16 October, viewed 28 June 2021, <https://theconversation.com/gable-tostee-case-how-common-is-death-by-falling-67147>.
Henry-Waring, MS & Barraket, J 2018, ‘Dating & intimacy in the 21st century: the use of online dating sites in Australia’, International Journal of Emerging Technologies & Society, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 14–33, viewed 28 June 2021, SAGE Journals database, DOI 10.1177/1440783308089167.
Sales, NJ 2015a, ‘Tinder and the Dawn of the Dating Apocalypse’, Vanity Fair, 6 August, viewed 28 June 2021, <https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/08/tinder-hook-up-culture-end-of-dating>.
Sales, NJ 2015b, ‘An open letter to Tinder’s Sean Rad from V.F’s Nancy Jo Sales’, Vanity Fair, November 20, viewed 28 June 2021, <https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/sean-rad-tinder-open-letter-nancy-jo-sales>.
Toma, CL 2015, ‘Online dating’, The International Encyclopedia of Interpersonal Communication, pp. 1–5, viewed 28 June 2021, DOI 10.1002/9781118540190.wbeic118.
Yoon, S, Choe, JS, Han, YM & Kim, SH 2020, ‘#MeToo hits online dating, too: An empirical analysis of the effect of the Me-Too movement on online dating users’, vol. 4, no. 5, pp. 28–44, viewed 28 June 2021, SAGE Journals database, DOI 10.1080/14791420.2018.1435083.
