ROSALIND HOBBS

Rosalind Hobbs

Isold Runarsdottir

The University of Tulsa

December  2021

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Online Dating: Addiction and Multidimensional Commodification

          The practices of partnership, from courtship to dating, actively changes over time and has become further economized within the past 100 years, but the introduction of online dating apps and sites has allowed for a heightened and deeper exploitation of consumerism in the wake of the internet. In other words, on online dating sites and apps, intimate experiences are for sale. These platforms reinforce the concept of a dating marketplace where users “shop” for partners while simultaneously extracting money and data from users. This marketplace of multidimensional commodification is fueled by the addictive nature of the now-digital social practice and powered by user interaction and cycles of constant gratification and social validation. This research will be laid out in three distinct parts in the following order: (1) understanding the addictiveness of online dating, (2) online dating as a user-to-user marketplace, (3) online dating as an industry. The extent to which economic concepts are entangled in some our most personal practices is not something we reflect on often, but by beginning to understand this complex relationship, this private world, that profits at the expense of our own lives, can be further critically critiqued and inspire a lens of skepticism in approaching social platforms as a whole.

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Understanding the addictiveness of online dating by Isold Runarsdottir

          In the article “How dating apps use the design features of slots to keep reeling you in,” Brooke Keaton delves into how dating apps are akin to slot machines in that they may make you addicted and make you want to keep playing until you find something better. Keaton describes how the dating app Tinder is addictive for a variety of reasons, including the need to be liked, the need for social validation, and the notifications the app sends us to ensure we are still using it. Keaton also describes how the apps are designed to trigger our dopamine release, similar to how we get so eager to find "the one," and you never know what will happen next. She also talks about how our self esteem can be affected by these apps. Numerous people suffer with their self esteem and body image, and these dating apps can of course boost those insecurities, but on the other hand it can also damage it. By getting valued and liked by other people on these dating apps will help you boost your confidence, and therefore it is “important” for the users to make their profile as good looking as possible, but it can damage our self esteem if we do not get this validation from other people like we expected. This article demonstrates how people can become addicted to these apps without even realizing it. 

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          Another interesting study, “Too many swipes for today: The development of the Problematic Tinder Use Scale (PTUS),”Gábor Orosz, István Tóth-Király, Beáta Böthe, and Dóra Melher discusses briefly how and why the dating app Tinder can be extremely addictive. In the study, the six-component model, which can discriminate between the key features of the problematic Tinder use, was utilized to detect the problematic Tinder use. (Griffiths, 2005). The six components where first; salience which is that Tinder usages has taken over people‘s minds and actions, mood modification; whereas it alters or improves one‘s mood, tolerance where Tinder use will have to enlarge, withdrawal; where people stop using Tinder and might experience negative feelings, conflict; where Tinder use places social interactions and other activities in risk, and lastly relapse; where after restriction, there is a tendency to resort to prior Tinder using behaviors.

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          The research was carried out using an online questionnaire system, which took the participants about three minutes to complete. The questionnaire's target group were people that had used Tinder at least once in their lives. Most of the people were female Hungarian participants who were 18 – 51 years old, and most of them lived in the capital. In the conclusion of the study, it was found that the six-component model of addiction that was based on Griffiths’ 2005 showed an acceptable structural model and stability. However, there were no significant demographic differences discovered. 

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          From this research study, there was a female participant interviewed about her Tinder app experience and she explained that it was easier for her to spend all of her time swiping left and right which made her feel addicted to the app, and she forgot about that it was actually in the purpose of trying to find “the one,” but instead she just swiped back and forth because she got bored. Despite the fact that this study did not come to a conclusion that dating apps can be particularly addictive I am confident to say that these dating apps are addicting in the sense that users will unconsciously catch themselves swiping without getting anything out of it.

 

Online dating as a user-to-user marketplace by Rosalind Hobbs

            When users participate in online dating, they are given the opportunity to browse an array of options, or other users. This concept of “relationshopping” considers the user as the consumer and other profiles or potential matches as the products (Logan Ury qtd. By Fetters and Tiffany). In the real world, our dating pool is limited to the people we are exposed to through school, or work; online however, the population of accessible partners grows exponentially with fewer to no limits on distance or exposure. While a more expansive selection could be deemed as useful, too many options can be overwhelming with more information than we can handle, also called the paradox of choice (CBSN). This means that to process the hundreds of people we are exposed to on online dating platforms, we must demote them to mere profiles, objects, or products to filter through quickly and efficiently. 

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          Simultaneously, because there are no consequences in exploring profiles and chatting with people of interest, the experience of online dating becomes game-like. Because we are not interacting with our matches in real life, we are “less likely to see [other profiles] as humans, as similar to us, as having real emotions,” (CBSN). These features of online dating create an alienated and deindividualized relationship between two matches. The concept of consumerism on dating sites is further complicated by the concept that users also undergo self-commodification, hoping to be selected by prospective partners. Participating in online dating requires marketing oneself while also browsing a plethora of “options,” this process is time-consuming and exhaustive yet manages to keep users captivated through the gears of an addictive cycle.

 

Online dating as an industry extracting money and data from users by Rosalind Hobbs

            While user-to-user commodification creates abnormal relationship development, there is an even grander system at play which profits from these concepts...the industry behind online dating. Dating apps and sites are built to keep users engaged to, ultimately, spend money with them. Many of these platforms use what is called the “freemium business model” which involves creating a free service with paid add-ons the app or site convinces you to purchase such as features including video chat, ‘super-likes,’ ‘see who viewed your profile,’ ‘rematch with expired connections,’ etc. (Wilken et al.). The service is free, but the potential add-ons are extremely tempting as they feed cycles of gratification with knowledge and further access to prospective connections. 

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          Additionally, dating apps provide a fruitful environment for advertising directed at users. This is especially true when considering the vulnerability experienced during dating that has the potential to translate into emotional consumerism. Furthermore, not only are users the target of consumer messages, the data users exert themselves is extracted and used to push plans for even greater revenue or sold to third party companies. Dating sites and apps are data “generators” and “repositories” (Wilken et al.) pushing consumerism, extracting user data for profit, and facilitating individual commodification and the objectification of fellow users. 

 

Conclusion

            The complexity of this intimate social digital world becomes more intricate as these frameworks of addiction and commodification are contextualized. From the very beginning of their design, these apps and sites intrinsically function on the monetization of users and have no interest in ensuring users find a lasting partner, for if that were the goal, their profitability would be greatly limited. The user experience plays closely on the desire of social validation and the proximity to finding a worthy partner. Once the attachment is established (that is, the attachment to the platform), users undergo an intensive exposure to commodification and profitable agendas of the companies. At our most vulnerable moment, when we are seeking love and intimacy, the online dating industry targets users multidimensionally and enforces it by establishing a deep addiction and attached relationship, not between two people, but between the user and the app.

 

Bibliography

Fetters, Ashley, et al. “The 'Dating Market' Is Getting Worse.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media

Company, 19 Aug. 2020.

CBSN News. "Speaking Frankly Dating Apps.” Youtube, 2019.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0aJ1Y6_RuA.

Keaton, Brooke. “How Dating Apps Use the Design Features of Slots to Keep Reeling You In.”

         Casino.org Blog, 12 Feb. 2020, https://www.casino.org/blog/how-dating-apps-copied-slots/.

Orosz, Gábor, et al. “Too Many Swipes for Today: The Development of the Problematic Tinder Use 

Scale (PTUS).” Journal of Behavioral Addictions, Akadémiai Kiadó, Sept. 2016, 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5264419/#.

Wilken, Rowan, et al. Dating apps and data markets: A political economy of communication approach. 

Computational Culture, 2019.