Dating Apps Are Obsessive
Many people I talk to seem to find dating apps taking up a lot of mental space.
Reasons for this may be: random reward and digital sexual addiction
Random Reward
What largely makes dating apps addictive is random reward. Random reward makes other things — texts, emails, and social media - also mentally exciting. With random rewards, we don’t know when we’ll get them, and we may impulsively check for them. In the case of digital media, the reward is a message or notification— and the excitement from feeling important that the message or notification brings.
Not only may we obsessively check for these rewards because they come at unpredictable times, we do whatever leads to the rewards because we want more of them. We may send texts and emails and upload content on social media knowing these may cause people to send us messages or likes and give us notifications in response.
We may constantly check texts, emails, and social media notifications looking for digital rewards, because that also allows us to respond to the digital interaction — and not seem like you are ignoring someone. We may constantly send texts and emails and upload pictures on social media to get into the flow of digital interactions and dopamine.
Dating apps have random rewards. It may be impossible to predict when you’ll get a message and impossible predict when you’ll get a match. And it’s hard to predict the quality of those matches. Furthermore, it’s hard to predict the positivity or negativity of responses. So not only do we not know when we’ll get that match or message, we don’t know the quality of it. This happens between texts and social media, but the sexual context may make this uncertainty much more stimulating. And to add to all of this, there is also the random variations in profile qualities when swiping.
Digital Sexual Addiction
Pornography and casual use of Facebook and Instagram may sexually stimulate us, which we may get hooked on. Dating apps are just another way of getting digital sexual stimulation from profiles and pictures.
Dating apps may create sexual stimulation without the immediate channel for it. By evaluating sexually stimulating pictures, we may create unreleased sexual stimulation. Porn may seem like a great way to release that, through the same digital interface that created it.
Ending
Random reward and digital sexual addiction may make dating apps seem addicting.
You, depending on your situation, and with full understanding of what is happening, decide how much use of these things is good for you.
I wrote a book about digital addiction. Purchase now from Barnes and Noble or Indiebound.
