Dating apps encourage our worst instincts. Here’s how to be more ethical | Christine Emba

About the video: Have we evolved to understand multiple rejections on Bumble, or survive more than one ghosting from Tinder? Christine Emba explores the sociology of modern dating and how to make them more ethical.

Before online dating became ubiquitous, most people met their partners at work, school, or through a shared network of friends. But as apps like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge have become the default for finding romance, an enormous shift from real life courtship to virtual has occurred.

How has this impacted the dating process? Online connections are often made independent of your normal circles, and lack supervision. This creates a lack of accountability that can encourage unethical behaviors such as harassment, objectification, ghosting, and worse from users.

How can we create a more positive environment on apps and ensure we’re dating with the best of intentions? Author Christine Emba explains.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Go Deeper with Big Think:

►Become a Big Think Member

►Get Big Think+ for Business

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About Christine Emba:

Christine Emba is an opinion columnist and editor at The Washington Post, where she focuses on ideas, society, and culture. She is also a contributing editor at Comment Magazine and an editor at large at Wisdom of Crowds, which includes a podcast and newsletter. Before this, Emba was the Hilton Kramer Fellow in Criticism at The New Criterion and a deputy editor at the Economist Intelligence Unit, focusing on technology and innovation. Her book, Rethinking Sex: A Provocation, is about the failures and potential of the sexual revolution in a post-#MeToo world. Emba was named one of the World’s Top 50 Thinkers by Prospect Magazine in 2022.

[RealSerie]

Nothing like watching a 2 minute ad when trying to watch a 7-minute video, all while paying for Premium.

[elizabethdavis]

Dating apps don’t make money by helping you find love so you get off the app. They make money by keeping you on the app as long as possible.

[littlebilly]

She mentioned getting rejected a lot, but I also think the opposite can be bad as well: getting too much attention. This can inflate people's self-image and lead to a decreasing desire to "settle" for someone who isn't in the 99th percentile of attractiveness/wealth

[iras]

As a guy I feel like dating apps are as useless as it gets. When I joined a year ago I paid everything and right at the beginning (when my elo was higher I guess) I managed to match with like 3 people altogether, and my record was around 10 messages (and even that was just me asking basic info because she didn't put anything in her profile). Apart from the first few weeks I was only liked by some fake profiles and I had 0 matches. No matter what you read on the internet this experience makes you feel the most undesirable person and can kill your confidence to an unhealthy level.

[timangus]

A huge part of the problem with dating apps is that they're more or less all owned by the same parent company (Match group). They operate a monopoly where it's in their interests for the products to be crap at what they're supposed to do.

[EchoesOfTruth]

Hearing that dating app users are more likely to experience distress and depression is concerning. The convenience of online dating might come with a bigger emotional cost than we think

[Skillseboy]

It's painful to see how much 'meeting through friends' receded. I personally find it the most beautiful and organic way of meeting someone. Seems like we've all become more hesitant to take the leap with people already close to us, in exchange for taking the leap with complete strangers for the sake of romance or 'love at first sight'

[joelharris]

Ever stop to think that maybe the concept of "romance" is oversold? The relationships that do work stem from what the scholarly literature refers to as "assortative mating", finding commonality, working toward common goals within similar or complimentary backgrounds. Love comes afterward

[JaySmith-pvmw]

Don't forget men outnumber women on the apps by 2 or 3 to 1. The majority of women won't consider men under a certain height. Also, a huge percentage of women's profiles are either inactive, outright fake or have so little information one can't even make a determination on possible compatibility.

Imagine walking into a room with a hundred potential mates. As soon as you enter, ninety walk out. Then out of the remaining ten, nine of them walk out while you are talking to them. The one remaining agrees to a first date and then never shows up. I am NOT exaggerating these numbers at all. This is what it's like for me on dating apps and why I have given up on them.

[TSbadger]

Why does nobody tell about the negative experience for men like:

1. All the female flaking
2. Foody calls
3. Catfishing
4. Ghosting
5. False rape allegations

[purplemicrodot]

I'm an incredibly short male with a monster personality. All women set their minimum search height over mine. I never get anywhere. A dating app can never quantify the whole of what makes me attractive (to some). I do best just living my life and running into interesting people who can see me as I am.

[Köennig]

Dating apps are a losing game, where people get to act out their fantasy standards for mates. It's so out of touch with reality.

[jdanielortega]

The fact that Bumble and Hinge have height filters but not weight filters is insane and makes 0 sense.

[tRuthHorne]

Its ok to give up on dating, it only gets worse from here!

[robbingcars]

I can’t do dating apps anymore. I don’t WANT to do dating apps anymore

[FlyingHangman]

"Building up the courage of speaking to someone in person at a bar or supermarket"

Yeah, these days it has very little to do with courage and much more to do with the sheer volume of crap that is broadcast on social media regarding candid interactions. The old saying of "the worst thing is they can say is no" is very obsolete; these days, theres a good chance that approaching someone is likely to end up with you being filmed, recorded, photographed etc and then posted out of context in social media.

[unclecode]

From spot-on assumptions to such overgeneralized advice like "Hey, be good!" You really don't need a book for that! This is a common issue with a lot of psychologists. They tap into real pains we all feel, grab our attention, make us eager for a solution because we're frustrated, and then at the end, just hit us with something vague like "be good!"

[jetbond]

You can't accurately compare men and women who feel insecure due to lack of messages on dating apps bc a "lack of messages" looks very different for a man vs woman on these apps ... the average match rate for women across all dating apps is 10.6% in comparison to men at 0.6%

[STartAndDesign]

Yes, I have most definitely noticed that people who use dating apps tend to have serious issues. I don't use them at all anymore.

[vmanikas]

The fact that, it is not mentioned whatsoever the huge imbalance of "success" (matches per swipe ratios) that women vs man have in these apps because of obvious imbalances that are heavily capitalized by those apps. In my opinion is a very one sided and misinformed point of view on this matter.... Meanwhile there was no lack of mentioning how the male frustration for the before mentioned effect, in turn affects women, almost painting the whole male gender as just toxic unsatisfied people while there is clearly huge imbalance on how biased all these apps are....