Are Dating Apps and Online Dating Sites Making Modern Dating Worse?

 

Are Dating Apps and Online Dating Sites Making Modern Dating Worse?

         Imagine it’s your eighteenth birthday… you find yourself wondering what opportunities are out there for you now that you’re a legal adult. You were just listening to a friend who also recently turned eighteen talk about someone they just met on a dating app, so you think to yourself, “why not?” and download a dating app yourself. However many minutes pass by and you finish setting up your profile, and once you feel satisfied with your work, you begin swiping. Excited about this new dating journey, you match with a few people and suddenly get a direct message from one of your matches. Curious, you open the message only to be met with an unsolicited photograph. Shocked and disgusted, you immediately close the app and delete it from your smartphone. This interaction leads you to avoid dating apps for the rest of your life. 

Modern dating apps and online dating websites have grown to be one of the most popular ways of finding a partner, whether that be a sexual or romantic partner. Often times, people will even get on these platforms to try and find platonic friends. While the concept of using these platforms is intriguing: meeting special people being as easy as the click of a button, dating apps and online dating websites have grown to become a breeding ground for traumatic events and experiences. Having the power to judge potential partners from a few pictures and a short introduction in their profile is dangerous because users have no insight into who their potential partners really are as a person and will sometimes have to find out the hard way. With a system such as this, users often find it hard to form meaningful connections and will encounter many issues throughout their time using the apps. 

One of the main issues users have faced is overall sexual harassment. From unfiltered direct messages to unsolicited photographs, many harmful behaviors have grown to be normalized when they really shouldn’t be. In a study done by the Journal of Sex Research, it was suggested that female college students are more likely to experience Dating App Facilitated Sexual Violence than males (Echevarria et al., 2023). These college students were surveyed on their experiences with dating apps and how they were affected mentally by them. In the survey, participants shared that they, because of sexual harassment, commonly experienced depression, lower-perceived control, loneliness, and lowered self-esteem. As a victim of dating app sexual harassment, you don’t get to control whether you can receive these things, so it’ll give users a sense of hopelessness and a lack of control. As much as dating apps and online dating websites have taken measures to prevent online sexual harassment from happening, there are only so many repercussions they can give and only so many things they can do. 

Another issue that was studied by the Journal of Eating Disorders was the connection between dating app usage and disordered eating. In many cases, people will grow to become insecure about their body because of their dating app matches or lack thereof. In this study, it was shown that within the first 12 months of using dating apps, adults found themselves trying to change their bodies (Tran et al., 2019). This link between dating app usage and disordered eating could be a result of many different factors such as comparisons to other user profiles, harmful direct messages, or general insecurity. Out of the three main factors, comparisons to other user profiles have typically been the case. When dating app users are swiping through profiles of people who may look different and live a different lifestyle than them, they can get into their head about their own appearance and develop a sense of someone being “out of their league” which is extremely damaging and limiting to those users. When someone is comparing themselves to others while using dating apps and online dating websites, it is impossible to avoid insecurity and unknowingly, these users are only adding onto and feeding into them. These insecurities, then, lead to people feeling a need to change their bodies and/or eating habits. 

The usage of fake photographs of someone pretending to be someone they’re not, also known as “catfishing,” is a risk most dating app and dating website users take into consideration when they first start off. The dangers of catfishing are major and can range from emotional harm (ex. betrayal, heartbreak, manipulation…) to general safety risks (ex. stalking, kidnapping, doxxing…). Multiple catfish victim case studies have been made, and one, for example, ended up being turned into a documentary called “Sweet Bobby.” This case took place in the United Kingdom and is one of the most elaborate catfishing scams reported in the country. The victim, Kirat, was in her 30s at the time and got caught up in an online relationship that lasted over a decade. Kirat met a man named Bobby on FaceBook through mutual family members and they started off as friends. Throughout their friendship, Bobby had been living a very rough life full of twists and turns and eventually had to be put in a witness protection program after being shot. Over the years, Bobby manipulated Kirat into a deep romantic relationship and grew to be so emotionally abusive that Kirat had lost weight, lost friends, and was so stressed that she had to quit her job as a radio presenter. After years and years of lies and over 60 fake identities to make this illusion believable, Kirat finally found out the truth. Kirat found out that Bobby was never real and that he was actually a character created by her own cousin. Her cousin, Simran, never faced criminal charges and showed no remorse for her actions. This case is a perfect example of the dangers of catfishing and showcases the emotional toll that can be taken on someone who becomes a victim of catfishing for an extended period of time

         Along with both body image issues and the dangers of “catfishing,” there have been studies done that show an increased risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections and diseases when meeting people using dating apps. While some people use dating apps to find romantic partners, others are looking for something casual and easy. “Hook-up culture” is something that has grown to be so normalized especially with college students and many studies have shown that people are more susceptible to taking the risk of having unprotected sex with people they meet on dating apps. A survey done by the Department of Psychology at University of Nevada and Texas Tech University explores the nature behind online dating profile hook-ups. Their survey showed that people who meet on dating apps typically have a higher chance of engaging in sexual risk-taking behaviors (Jennings et al., 2023). These behaviors are a result of this perceived “sexual liberation” that people feel when they become users of online dating apps. 

         Despite the well-known and previously discussed negatives of using online dating apps, dating apps have also served as a safe space for people with a limited dating pool to meet. People in the queer community, for example, have a harder time finding partners that are compatible with them in terms of sexual orientation. The main reason that the queer community has struggled is not to a lack of compatible partners but rather a lack of being able to find them. In a study done by Josh Hopkins University, it was shown that meeting people online provides more variety for queer people where there are fewer romantic options and a smaller local dating pool (Rosenfeld et al., 2019). Another notable community that has benefitted from online dating apps is people with social anxiety. People with social anxiety often struggle to meet romantic and/or sexual partners in person due to a fear of speaking and rejection. Dating apps and online dating websites serve as a shield for these people to push themselves out of their comfort zones and meet people. Face-to-face interactions and the fear of saying the wrong thing to someone you would like to impress is indeed a stress inducing thought, but speaking with people on dating apps gives you the chance to thoroughly think out what you would like to say before sending it, unlike speaking to someone in person. Another common thought that goes along with meeting partners on dating apps is that you have more freedom and comfort in knowing you have the option to get to know someone as much as you would like and prepare yourself more before meeting them in person. So, dating apps are actively serving as a healthy alternative way for people to meet when used with the right intentions.  

         Using dating apps and online dating websites is not for everyone, but with the proper precautions and intentions they aren’t as bad as people make them out to be. It doesn’t matter what you are looking for when using dating apps as long as you are cautious, not harassing or disrespecting anyone, and practicing safe sex. 

Works Cited

Echevarria, Samantha G., et al. “College Students’ Experiences of Dating App Facilitated Sexual Violence and Associations with Mental Health Symptoms and Well-Being.” Ebsco, Oct. 2023, research-ebsco-com.columbiabasin.idm.oclc.org/c/m43hoz/viewer/html/sxq3hkg5xf?auth-callid=5fd78bb0-82ba-449e-96da-92cfd9a5aa1a.

Tran, Alvin, et al. “Dating App Use and Unhealthy Weight Control Behaviors among a Sample of U.S. Adults: A Cross-Sectional Study.” Gale Onefile Health and Medecine, 2019, go-gale-com.columbiabasin.idm.oclc.org/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T002&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&retrievalId=12e079ac-c523-4e88-b3e0-1a79d04cb6d3&hitCount=1&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm&currentPosition=1&docId=GALE%7CA590705401&docType=Report&sort=Relevance&contentSegment=ZHCC&prodId=HRCA&pageNum=1&contentSet=GALE%7CA590705401&searchId=R3&userGroupName=pasc15962&inPS=true&aty=ip.

Jennings, Todd L, et al. “Associations between Online Dating Platform Use and Mental and Sexual Health among a Mixed Sexuality College Student Sample.” Computers in Human Behavior, Pergamon, 1 Mar. 2023, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S074756322300078X. 

Rosenfeld, Michael J, et al. “Disintermediating Your Friends: How Online Dating in the United States Displaces Other Ways of Meeting | PNAS.” PNAS, 2019, www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1908630116. 

Nagata, Jason M, et al. “Social Epidemiology of Online Dating in U.S. Early Adolescents.” Research Guides, 2020, guides.stetson.edu/fulltext/ebsco. 

“The World’s Most Complex Catfishing Scam | Investigators.” YouTube, YouTube, 4 Apr. 2022, www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MgCUdAUhc8&t=10s.