Online Dating and its Affect on Traditional Dating
By Jessica Long
In an online world traditional dating has been hard to come by. There is the pressure of dating apps. Meeting the appearance desires of others, and the mental health concerns that come with dating apps leaves us with the question if all of it is even worth it.
Dating apps have changed the way that we date with apps such as Tinder, Hinge, and Bumble. It has changed communication. More people communicate through text and have the ability to block and ignore each other rather than valuing the person behind the screen.
The face-to-face connection with a real person has been minimized as people reach out to others online and not in person. The lack of in-person communication has caused the fear of approaching a potential partner and being rejected.
How will dating apps, texting, and the lack of face-to-face connections impact dating as we know it?
Commitment Issues
Deseret News states that Generation Z is very careful or hesitant and might be seen as indecisive. Gen Z understands that any relationship they start might not succeed.
Gen Z members — people born between 1997 and 2012, per Pew Research Center — are anxious. They’re pragmatic. And, according to one recent study, just 1 in 10 are “committed to being committed,” per the BBC.
In a culture where individual success is prioritized, the idea of commitment can seem even more scary. “Commitment does mean trying yourself to something” Christine Emba columnist for the Washington Post states.
Emba, the author of “Rethinking Sex: A Provocation,” told me, “I think there’s a big shift in dating culture overall for everyone, but especially concentrated for (Gen Z) is the shift to online dating — and not only online dating, but app-based dating.”
Online Dating Versus IRL
Gen-Z believes they can no longer meet people face-to-face. When you come across someone on a dating app, you know they are interested in dating. However, when you see someone in person, they could be available for dating or already in a relationship.
Gen Z’s unique mindset has blurred the lines of traditional dating milestones they inherited from previous generations. Young people today are hesitant to say that they’re dating someone, much less being exclusive with them.
Design That Lacks
Dating apps are causing difficulties for Gen-Z when it comes to dating. They do not effectively assist individuals in finding a suitable partner, even though that was the main intention behind their creation.
Here’s the thing about dating apps: They’re not that interested in helping users find love. “Ultimately, the apps are about putting more of your income into marriage or sex, so they’re trying to motivate you to engage,” Natasha Dow Schüll, author of Addiction by Design, told the Evening Standard last year.
However, Gen Z uses dating apps as their primary method of dating. According to the Pew Research Center, 59% of adults aged 18 to 29 have used a dating app or website. When dating apps first launched about 10 years ago, Emba said they felt revolutionary.
Dating apps have also been used for advertising. In a recent TikTok a user explained her story of “meeting” a man on a dating app just to get to get stood up. But she wasn’t stood up by an actual person.
The restaurant was posing as a man, so planning to meet her, go on a date, and have dinner. The idea is that even though you are stood up, you are most likely seated waiting for your date, so even if they don’t show up, you are most likely going to order something and stay anyway.
The TikTok explained that she had later come across a similar story on Facebook and realized she had been scammed.
To Many Disposable Options
After using dating apps for a decade, people are starting to get burnt out. This burnout is due to having too many options right at your fingertips, which makes it difficult to date.
This naturally leads people to not want to commit to anyone. Being able to settle and stay loyal to one person where there are so many options makes purposeful dating hard.
There is the idea that there could always be someone better than the one you are currently talking to. There is plenty of fish in the sea but at times it causes trouble when you have access to all those fish.
Commitment becomes an issue, too. Gen Z is afraid to commit because they worry they could miss out on something better.
This causes people to treat others like they are disposable. When there are so many options, it becomes easy to block someone and not learn how to communicate or simply move on to the next best option that is recommended for you.
It can also lead to people treating others badly. This leads to harassment or cyberbullying. One person told Emba that because she’s Jewish, she received multiple racist messages while on Hinge, including a racial slur. Not only were people inappropriate, but she had been stood up not once but six times.
Minimizing Users by Appearance
On apps, appearance can play a big role. You have not connected with that person in person to get an idea of their personality to be attracted to them in that way.
A real-life person has been replaced by data like height and weight and a fixation on appearance. The first thing a person sees is a picture. It directs a person to a picture rather than the personality of the person being shown.
This can also be minimized. When boiling down your entire person into a single picture and a few quirky responses, subtleties are bound to get lost, said Brian, 30, who is using a pseudonym for privacy. Instead, people become a stereotype — say, a “foodie” or “sporty.”
Like many people, Brian, a civil engineer from Atlanta, lists a list of qualities he looks for in a date. Being active in the outdoors was important to him, but he often thought it was a deal breaker.
Apps reinforce that mindset, he said. If someone isn’t good at sports, why bother talking to them when so many other options are just better?
Dating Apps and Mental Health
Brain also told CNN for this reason he has decided to distance himself from dating apps. It has been a lot healthier for him to make these connections in real life.
Before removing himself from dating apps, he started to notice it had an impact on his mental health. When you match with someone, you get a dopamine rush that can carry you through the day with a high.
But if the following week he didn’t get matches or far more matches, he would feel depressed. “I was waiting for the next dopamine rush to hit, the next match to come,” he said.
The apps might claim to help users find love, but to make money, they also need users to keep coming back for more, Zhou said. That informs some of the “stickiness,” of the apps, he said. They’re a paradox.
