Should we say goodbye to dating apps?

Are dating apps a convenient tool to find love or an unfortunate symptom of our reliance on tech?

I recently shared a great NYT essay on the “Luddite Teens” — a group of anti-tech teens who traded in their screen-based childhoods for flip phones and dumbphones. They rebelled from the way they were raised and yearned for a life offline. As the Luddites left high school, a few ran into some friction when trying to exist in the “real world” without a smartphone.

I can relate — I likely couldn’t get through a day without the tools I use on my smartphone. I was surprised, though, that it was not banking apps or Maps or Spotify that tempted them to use a smartphone — it was dating apps.

“She slowly pulled something from her satchel — a second phone, an Android.

‘I own this now with a sense of inner torture,’ Ms. Watling said, ‘but I have to look out for my well-being as a young woman. It’s too risky for me to put my life in the hands of a flip phone.’

She stressed that the smartphone was not part of her everyday life: ‘I use it only when I need to, mostly for Uber,” she said. “I’ve tried Hinge, too, but always delete it.’

Another founding club member, Odille Zexter, who wasn’t able to make the reunion, agreed in a phone interview that dating apps were a formidable impediment to the Luddite way.

‘I’ve successfully resisted technology since high school, but sometimes I feel left out of things,’ Ms. Zexter, who is studying studio art at Bard College, said. ‘Dating apps are one of them, because everyone at Bard uses them. Then I remind myself they’re just another form of scrolling and social media. That they go against my values.’”

I know dating apps are a major part of today’s culture, so it piqued my curiosity — should they be seen as a tool? Or are they another unfortunate symptom of our tech-reliant society?

Swipe right

Full disclosure: I missed the dating app wave by a tiny hair. I met my now-husband in college, nearly fifteen years ago. I’ve never downloaded a single dating app, and to be frank — I’m grateful. I’ve never liked the idea of them. The concept of creating a digital profile for myself, and then swiping through strangers’ profiles has always felt like it would be a sterile experience at its best, a degrading one at its worst.

Lyz, of Men Yell at Me, sums up my feelings aptly in her essay, The enshittification of dating apps: “When you approach love with an algorithm we all are dehumanized.”

Yet, I can’t deny the fact that they obviously work for many. The data seems to be all over the place, but according to this study, in 2024, 27% of engaged couples met on the apps. I personally know countless couples who met online, and they remain happily married.

There is something to be said of the straightforward approach of dating apps — you can be transparent about what you’re looking for, you can tell someone exactly who you are before even meeting in person, and you can do this all from the comfort of your couch. Add in the instant gratification and potential for boosting your confidence — I get the lure, I do.

Regardless of their effect on the zeitgeist, it seems that there has been a cultural reliance on dating apps that has intensified in the last decade. So, is it because dating apps are such a great tool or have our social skills atrophied to the point that we are simply reliant on them to find love?

Are we too awkward for a good meet-cute?

The more time we have spent online, the more socially awkward we have become as a society. From EAVI, “Non-verbal cues, such as body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice are often lost in the digital realm. Not trained to read them, young people find it increasingly difficult to efficiently communicate face-to-face.”

The Surgeon General quite literally put out a report that claims we are in a loneliness and social isolation epidemic. We hide behind our screens for fear of rejection or an uncomfortable conversation or a mere moment of vulnerability.

Fighting loneliness

Some point to the pandemic as a heightening factor of our society’s increased awkwardness — “We are subtly but inexorably losing our facility and agility in social situations — whether we are aware of it or not.”

While I’m certain the pandemic intensified society’s fear of basic social interaction, it’s not the root cause — screens are. From a 2021 study by One Poll, “From avoiding the phone at work to a fear of making small talk on the street – the study of 2,000 millennials found 65 percent don’t feel confident when it comes to face-to-face social situations….68 percent admit they actively avoid talking face to face if they can - with talking to people they don’t know in public and work colleagues the most dodged interactions…..a resounding eight in ten millennials feel they are often more vocal or able to express themselves in text or online than they are in person.”

It’s a never-ending cycle. We find comfort from hiding behind our phones, and it only intensifies the dread of face-to-face conversations — conversations that are vital to our social growth.

In an interview with Greater Good Magazine, Sherry Turkle says, “…conversation is the most human and humanizing thing that we do. It’s where empathy is born, where intimacy is born—because of eye contact, because we can hear the tones of another person’s voice, sense their body movements, sense their presence. It’s where we learn about other people.”

Are we fed up with swiping?

It does seem that Gen Z is moving away from dating apps. According to Bustle magazine, a 2023 survey of college and graduate students found 79% don’t use dating apps even once a month. Promising.

From Time Magazine,

“Generally speaking, dating apps are losing their appeal with daters of all ages. There’s an increasing feeling that the algorithms aren’t helping them find what they want—or that dating app companies are only there to upsell their customers by hiding helpful features and users behind paywalls. The disenchantment grows still when daters, specifically women, minorities, fat people, and people with disabilities have negative experiences like harassment on the apps. It makes sense that most apps get deleted within the first month. Having grown up seeing generations before them struggle with what was the latest and greatest technology for meeting potential partners, Gen-Z is more critical of what apps have to offer. This generation has more of a focus on self care and authenticity in dating than previous generations, and dating apps fall short of the types of genuine, easy connections they’re trying to make.”

When researching for this article, I found countless reasons why you should stay away from them. Among the arguments: They’re terrible for your mental health; you’re gamifying a relationship; they lead to unrealistic expectations of perfection; they lead to poor self image, they’ve amplified ghosting culture; they’re addictive.

Lyz, continues in her essay mentioned above:

Dating apps are a symptom of a deeper cultural problem in which a person’s romantic status is seen to say something meaningful about their worth as a human being. This makes people feel desperate — which has allowed the search for romance to become gamified, commodified, and enshittified.

But this, of course, isn’t everyone’s experience. They do still work for a huge chunk of people who use them.

Are dating apps a tool or something to avoid?

Let’s return again to the earlier stat I noted — nearly a third of 2024 engagements are estimated to be the result of a relationship found on a dating app. So they can work, they can be a tool.

Of course, social media can be a tool too. Yet a dangerous one if wielded inappropriately.

Your phone is a tool. Use it like one.

So, maybe our best bet is to look at dating apps as something to consider with some fairly firm boundaries —a tool to utilize with your eyes wide open to the risks.

If you’re looking to find love online, some thoughts to consider:

• Limit your time on the apps— just like with anything indulgent, use it sparingly. Don’t let yourself swipe for hours. Set specific times that you will engage with the app and be strict with your rules.

• Notice how you feel before during and after you use the apps — if they are making you feel defeated, deflated, sad, self-conscious, then get rid of them. Don’t waste time on something that makes you feel bad. You’re gambling with yourself, with your time, with your energy. It’s not worth it.

• Push yourself to meet people in real life too — balance your time spent online with getting out in the real world. Spark up a conversation with a stranger, make eye contact with the cute barista, talk to people every day and sharpen those interpersonal skills.

I want to end with this: you don’t need the apps. You really don’t. They might make things feel easier, and maybe they’ll work for you, but they don’t define your worth.

Only you have that power.