The grim view of online dating-Rethinking Tinder (original) (raw)
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The More We Tinder: Subjects, Selves and Society
Mobile online dating is currently a widespread and important phenomenon in many peoples' daily lives. Digital applications like Tinder enable users to get in contact with numerous possible partners quickly and with minimal effort often basing their decision on pictures. Research related to mobile online dating so far has focused mostly on users' specific traits or on their motives to use such applications. But which role does mobile online dating play in peoples' lives? What does it mean to them? Which desires, emotions and expectations are involved? How does the use of the application influence peoples' daily activities and how do they relate to this impact? To answer these questions, we (a) reconstructed the architecture of Tinder to understand the characteristics of its functions for the way it is used and the respective consequences, (b) replicated the Tinder Motives Scale (Timmermans & De Caluwe, Comput. Hum. Behav., 70, S. 341-350, 2017)-extended by social and demographic variables and (c) analyzed qualitative interviews with Tinder users about their experiences, their usage and its impact on emotions, thoughts and behaviour. In this article, we show the complexity of mobile online dating beyond presumptions and stereotypes and reveal its inherent economic logic (Weigel, 2018) and acceleration dynamics (Rosa, 2013). Furthermore, we reference people's narrations and rationalizations to a specific discourse of the self which shapes subjects' private concept of the self in a particular-liberal and economic-logic (Gergen, 1991, Rose, 1989) and reflect on the subjects' scopes for action and meaning making.
Tinder as a Technological Platform and Dating Apps as Catalysts for Social Representations.
Contemporary Approaches in Social Science Researches, 2019
Social Networks Sites enable new forms of relationships (Boyd and Ellison, 2007; Comunello, 2010; Boccia Altieri, 2012) and create new interaction contexts (Boyd, 2014). Given these premises, we propose to investigate the way technology used for courtship - particularly Tinder - influences the creation of social representations (Moscovici, 2001) and the construction of identity. The dating platform is a framework within which user develops self-presentation by implementing rational strategies. From the analysis of the emerging literature (Ranzini and Lutz, 2016; David and Cambre, 2016) there is a tendency to study dating apps mainly as a technological object, without going into the implications these can have in the way they shape relationships. On the other hand, in our opinion, those who have studied the evolution of social relations in this context have not fully considered the technological impact. Our work explores the interdependence between these two aspects: Tinder as a technological platform and dating apps as catalysts for social representations. Tinder is a location-based real-time dating app. This differs from similar dating apps for three main reasons: it accelerates a social trend making online dating socially acceptable; made the match system game-like and since” everyone has it” its users perceive it more as a social network site than a hook-up app. The key element of the interface is the swipe, derived from touch technology for mobile. Based on our set objectives, the evolution of the app interface and user experience will be analyzed through the concept of circularity (Manovich, 2001). In the preliminary phase, we will use exploratory focus groups to understand the set of expectations, attitudes, opinions, desires that guide user behavior. We will present the results of this first research phase and the resulting methodological framework.
Where Dating Meets Data: Investigating Social and Institutional Privacy Concerns on Tinder
The widespread diffusion of location-based-real-time-dating or mobile dating apps, such as Tinder and Grindr, is changing dating practices. The affordances of these dating apps differ from those of “old school” dating sites, for example by privileging picture based selection, minimizing room for textual self-description, and drawing upon existing Facebook profile data. They might also affect users’ privacy perceptions as these services are location-based and often include personal conversations and data. Based on a survey collected via Mechanical Turk, we assess how Tinder users perceive privacy concerns. We find that the users are more concerned about institutional privacy than social privacy. Moreover, different motivations for using Tinder – hooking up, relationship, friendship, travel, self-validation and entertainment – affect social privacy concerns more strongly than institutional concerns. Finally, loneliness significantly increases users’ social and institutional privacy concerns, while narcissism decreases them. (This paper will appear shortly in "Social Media + Society")
A study into the effects that Tinder has had on love in modernity. Data gathered from focus groups highlights the shifting nature of love and how it is now becoming a commodity, romance is now a free market. And despite the abundance of means to facilitate romantic engagement and the abundance of candidates, love is now harder to find than before with a sense of paranoia straining emotional bonds
Learning about self and society through online dating platforms
The 16th International Scientific Conference on eLearning and Software for Education eLSE 2020, 2020
People develop their identities and self-knowledge through constant presentation of self in situations of everyday interaction. In this paper we study strategies of learning about self and society through participation in the online dating platform Tinder, and in digital communities dedicated to collective reflection on this experience. Through an exploratory research based on observation and on content analysis on several online platforms, we identify stages of learning on a social trajectory from novice to methodical and to expert participant, and we illustrate how learning about one's self involves at the same time learning about others and the medium of interaction in which presentation and validation take place. As Erving Goffman demonstrated, the presentation of self in everyday life is a highly organized activity in which people pursue others' validation. Invalidation can be painful and humiliating, possibly leading to degradation of one's status and to specific coping mechanisms. The increasing frequency of self-presentation in digitally mediated situations introduces novel processes in how people learn about themselves and others. Building a profile, seeking validation in the form of "likes" or "followers" or swipes to the right on Tinder, dealing with rejection when validation fails to materialize in the expected form or quantity, have become common activities for people across generations. Correspondingly, people ask for and give advice as to how to best present oneself and how to deal with rejection, on blogs, forums, Q&A platforms, books and other media. Technologically mediated interaction leads to metric forms of validation, as users count the likes and matches they receive and optimize self-presentations to achieve desired numbers, among others. Digital platforms also make possible the gathering of digital traces about oneself and others and the interpretation of data-from personal self-tracking to wider exercises of observation and analysis of communities. People who are active on Tinder learn how to interpret profiles and numbers that are specific to this platform, how to react when metrics are disappointing and how to fine tune their self-presentation. Knowledge about oneself is intimately related to knowledge about the digital platform mechanisms, its incentives and mechanics, and to knowledge about other users' strategies. We illustrate how Tinder encourages reflexivity about one's dating skills and erotic capital while at the same time encouraging a systemic understanding of online dating as a social game with specific technological incentives that continuously change the field of intimate interaction.
IU Press, 2023
Online dating has become a worldwide trend and influenced the dating landscape since Tinder. The predominantly Western literature generally criticizes how dating technologies have commodified dating while paying less attention to how these technologies are used in and affected by different cultural settings. By regarding Tinder as an algorithmic cultural object, this research concentrates on the interaction between technology and culture and aims to understand through Tinder's design how it is used and interpreted in Turkey, as well as how it affects and is affected by this specific cultural setting. To this end, the study uses the walkthrough method, which consists of analyses of the app and related content. The article argues that Tinder's simple sign-up and profile decoration processes, GPS functionality, and swiping feature, which reduces partner selection into a yes-or-no binary format, encourage an understanding of Tinder as a hookup app. The paper demonstrates how this social understanding has unequal effects on users in Turkey, as the hookup practice is primarily socially constructed as a men's right. On one hand, men view Tinder as a legitimate place to hunt women and enjoy this right. On the other hand, while enjoying the limited agency the app provides, women must also cope with the symbolic category of "that kind of woman," which reduces female Tinder users to sexual objects. The paper draws attention to how technological affordances and changes are limited by the codes, norms, and terms of the cultural setting in which technological tools are used.
Online dating apps such as Tinder are changing the way Indians date. Users capture the same social cues from Tinder profiles, as it does when you meet someone in the offline world. It has led to newer ways of communication and behaviors amongst the youth of urban India where Tinder has supremacy compared to other Asian countries. This research will study these different behaviors amongst the Tinder users, resulting in a collective case study of relationships made on Tinder. Through in-depth interviews with both the genders, we will try to explore how Tinder has contributed to forge a new connection in almost real-time without waiting for a happy-chance.
2011
With the increasing dissemination and usage of online mate choice, finding a partner via the Internet has attracted remarkable public attention in the last decade. Several, mostly negative prejudices toward online mate choice-especially regarding its risks and disadvantages-circulate constantly throughout the mass media and form public perceptions. This article presents common stereotypes on this (still) new phenomenon, derived from an investigation of newspapers online and offline, online guides, blogs, and discussion forums and confronts them with the empirical facts. Based on several descriptive analyses, we discuss whether and to what extent ten prevalent beliefs correspond to the empirical reality of finding a mate via the Internet in Germany.
Algorithmic heteronormativity: Powers and pleasures of dating and hook-up apps
Sexualities
We propose the concept of algorithmic heteronormativity to describe the ways in which dating apps' digital architectures are informed by and perpetuate normative sexual ideologies. Situating our intervention within digital affordance theories and grounding our analysis in walkthroughs of several popular dating apps' (e.g., Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge) interfaces, promotional materials, and ancillary media, we identify four normative sexual ideologies-gendered desire, hetero and homonormativity, mononormativity, and shame-that manifest in specific features, including gender choice, compatibility surveys, and private chat. This work builds on earlier digital culture theorizing by explicitly articulating the reciprocal and gradational linkages between existing moral codes, digital infrastructures, and individual behaviors, which in the contemporary context work jointly to narrow the horizon of intimate possibility.