Understanding Dating Apps and Obsession

After receiving many requests, I will be releasing a book on all of the topics covered in this blog. Add your email here to be notified when it’s released and get access to the signed early copies.

Many people I talk to believe dating apps are addicting, obsessive. I believe they inspire impulsive use more so than most other digital media we interact with. I also believe they are particularly cognitive consuming, crowding out space for thinking about other things. There are a couple reasons for this, which I will discuss in this writing. These reasons are variable reward, sexual stimulation, and participation in the continuum of digital sexual addiction (this will be explained). One other reason that will be considered briefly at the end is the ineffectiveness of the matching algorithms.

The characteristic that makes dating apps particularly addictive is variable reward. This makes other forms of media engagement — like texting, emailing, and using social media - impulsive and arguably addictive. What happens is, we don’t know when we’ll receive a digital interaction and the associated dopamine reward, from the social desirability that the digital interaction makes us feel. Like with all rewards whose timing of receipt we cannot predict, we maximally engage with behavior leading to those rewards. We maximally text, email, and upload content on social media, and we maximally check texts, emails, and social media notifications. Those who do not are those who have observed — or been taught — the consequences of constant task switching on productivity, attention span, and, linked, happiness. These people are few and far between. I hope they grow in number and inspire cultural change.

Using dating apps has more layers of variable reward than texting, emailing, and using social media. Not only is receiving a new message essentially random and difficult to predict, but also receiving new match is essentially random and difficult to predict. And for these unpredictable messages, the sentiment of the messages — whether the message is favorable or unfavorable in response to your previous message— is also difficult to predict (purely situational to the temporary emotional context of the person responding). Furthermore, the quality of the matches themselves are difficult to predict. So not only is there uncertainty of when we will receive a match or a message, but there is uncertainty of the quality of the match and the quality of the message.

What makes the unpredictability of the timing and quality of a match and message so addicting is that, unlike most texts and emails, this activity has a much more direct sexual context. Our sex drive feed the addictive capacity of interacting with these multiple layers of variable reward.

To add to all of these layers of variable reward, there is also the unpredictability of the quality of profiles shown when swiping. This also has a sexual context that makes it powerful.

What in turn amplifies the addictiveness of this activity is many of us are addicted to a continuum of digital sexual stimulation. Many of us experience sexual anxiety when on Facebook and especially Instagram and then alleviate that sexual anxiety through porn: through the same digital interface that created the sexual anxiety. With porn, the access to novelty tends to increase the frequency of masturbation sessions. Then we are abnormally deprived of sexual energy and turn to sexual content on social media — the thing leading to the porn and the total elimination of sexual energy— to temporarily restore it.

I believe dating apps provide a similar function to social media in the continuum of digital sexual stimulation. They produce sexual anxiety from producing sexual stimulation without an immediate channel for it. By evaluating sexually stimulating pictures, we mentally interact with them, and this produces sexual stimulation. Dating apps also produce sexual anxiety because when we swipe profiles, we are often not immediately — if at all — met with right swipes back. Many profiles are inactive, and unless we are spending money we are not given much exposure to other people. The sexual anxiety leads to interaction with porn to alleviate the sexual anxiety on the same digital interface that created it. Then we turn to dating apps and social media for more sexual stimulation throughout the day to restore sexual energy, kickstarting the loop again.

All these things cause interaction with dating apps to be addicting — to seem to lead to impulsive use despite realizing that it is irrational and possibly harmful.

The multiple layers of variable reward cause them to be cognitively consuming: causing us to constantly anticipate these variable rewards and thus removing space to focus on other things. To make matters worse, the ineffectiveness of the dating apps compounds these problems.

But maybe that’s what they want. If dating apps were highly effective, would there be a need to pay for Tinder Gold to see who right swiped you, to more quickly and less unpredictably find matches? Would there be a need for a boost — to be shown to a large enough number of people so you have better likelihood of receiving a match you’re satisfied with? The inefficiency creates those opportunities, but those will likely be drowned out over time as the dating apps compete to be more effective with matching.

They’re addicting and consuming, for now. Be careful of how they are influencing your interaction with other media, like porn. More effective can be pursuing relationships in the real world. Variable reward is addicting and costly when sexual and instantly accessible, like with dating apps. Dating apps can be helpful, but people must be aware of the costs and be ready to spend more energy restraining themselves from addictive use. They make certain things more efficient but also bring new inefficiencies. Certain people, depending on their circumstances, and with full understanding of what is happening, can decide whether using dating apps is right for them.

After receiving many requests, I will be releasing a book on all of the topics covered in this blog. Add your email here to be notified when it’s released and get access to the signed early copies.

Understanding Dating Apps and Obsession was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.