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hubie [soylentnews.org] writes:

Satisfaction with online dating app depends on what you're looking for [stanford.edu]:

With an estimated 75 million active users each month, Tinder is the most popular dating app in the world. But a new study by Stanford Medicine researchers and collaborators has found, surprisingly - though perhaps not to users of the app - that many users are not swiping for dates.

In a survey of more than a thousand Tinder users, half said they were not interested in meeting offline, and nearly two-thirds were already married or "in a relationship."

In fact, the psychological motivations behind people's use of the app varied widely and had a strong influence on their satisfaction with the app and the dates it led to, according to the study published June 23 in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. For many people, online dating has a similar appeal as social media - a source of entertainment, distraction and self-esteem - and may have similar pitfalls, said Elias Aboujaoude, MD, clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and an author of the study.

[...] "The surprising part is that a big percentage, about half, were not going online to find dates," Aboujaoude said. "It becomes an interesting question as to why someone would spend all this time on a dating app if they're not interested in finding a date."

Besides looking for committed romantic partners or uncommitted sex partners, many people reported using the app for social connectedness, for entertainment and distraction, to increase positive emotions, and to cope with negative ones.

"We call them dating apps, but they're clearly serving other functions besides dating," Aboujaoude said.

[...] The results suggest that online dating is an ineffective coping mechanism for those facing mental health challenges, Aboujaoude said. As someone who has studied problematic internet use for 15 years, he drew parallels to social media use, which can exacerbate conditions like depression, anxiety and low self-esteem.

"You need to work on the unhealthy coping mechanism, but you also need to address what it is that you're trying to cope with," he advised. "If it turns out there's an actual mental health condition, be it depression, ADHD, anxiety or something else, we don't want that to go undiagnosed. There are established treatments that can be very effective for those conditions."

The variable that most strongly predicted higher satisfaction with Tinder-generated offline dates was age. Perhaps older people who did not grow up with dating apps approach them with a healthy level of circumspection and tend to be more selective in their matches, Aboujaoude said.

"I think the average user could probably learn from this finding and be happier with their online dating experience," he said.

Journal Reference:
Germano Vera Cruz et al., Finding Intimacy Online: A Machine Learning Analysis of Predictors of Success, Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking VOL. 26, NO. 8 2023. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2022.0367 [doi.org]

Original Submission