You’re in line at a coffee shop. Light jazz is playing in the background; you can hear espresso dripping into cups and light chatter from the people beside you. You grab your coffee and go to sit down at a table.
Across the shop from you, a person is reading your favourite book, the same one you have in your New Yorker tote bag. As you settle down in your seat, you look up, making eye contact. They smile at you. You smile back.
They're cute, you think.
You look back down and pull out your phone. You start to swipe on a dating app as you sip your coffee.
Left. Left. Left. Right. Right. Left.
You’ve been swiping for only a minute and have already seen a bunch of people you know, including your co-worker, your TA and your crush from that 10 a.m. English lecture in Buchanan B. But besides the people that you know, you’ve swiped right on a handful of eligible singles in your area.
The only issue? You’re not getting matches, or at least not as many as you were expecting.
You turn off your phone and grab your book. This sucks, you think.
Roughly 38.7 per cent of respondents to The Ubyssey’s 2021 sex survey had used dating apps since March 2020. A 2019 study of Canadian university students found that 15.9 per cent of men and 8.7 per cent of women said that their last sexual encounter was a hookup or one-night stand.
Hooking up, casual sex and swiping are normal for university students. However, each impact one’s mental health.
Dating app users can experience positive emotional reactions after hookups, but that does not mean that everyone does. Dr. Kaitlyn Goldsmith, a psychology instructor at UBC, attributes this to dating app users’ expectations versus reality.
“There can also be some negative experiences as well,” said Goldsmith. “Some people experience feelings of regret, disappointment and dissatisfaction.”
According to Business of Apps, online matchmaking has grown into a $3.08 billion industry with roughly 270 million users worldwide, since the rise of dating apps in the early 2010s.
Safety behind a screen
Anuja, a UBC undergraduate who uses she/they pronouns, first downloaded dating apps in their first year. Anuja’s last name has been omitted to protect their identity as they are Queer and not out to everyone in their life.
Anuja’s Tinder bio contained one line: “Help me move my furniture.”
They sat staring at the soft glow of their phone swiping. Left. Right. Left. Left. Right.
They thought nothing of the left swipes. Why would they think anything of it? That’s just how dating apps work. That was until a few hours later when she received messages on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn, all from profiles belonging to the same stranger. “I can help you move your furniture. Where do you live? Tell me, I'll come down right now,” the messages read.
Although they didn’t recognize the photos in the profile, they knew it was someone they must have swiped left on.
With only Anuja’s first name and profile photos, this person could find all their social media accounts.
They kept messaging Anuja. They asked and guessed where Anuja lived. It was close to where they lived, a little too close for comfort.
Anuja was scared. She blocked the person across all platforms. But they just kept making more profiles and direct messaging Anuja. Anuja was being cyberstalked — the repeated use of online communication to harass someone. Eventually, she filed a report with Facebook.
“That was a pretty terrifying experience,” said Anuja. “Knowing that this person could get ahold of my whereabouts, somehow, was not a good feeling.”
According to a study released in 2018, 2.5 million Canadians experienced cyberstalking in 2014. While The Ubyssey wasn’t able to find a more recent study on Canadians, a study released by the Pew Research Center this January reported that 41 per cent of Americans had experienced online harassment. Eleven per cent of Americans experienced cyberstalking specifically.
Internet intimacy
Eighteen-year-old Aidan Perreault downloaded Tinder as a joke. It was his first year at a new school, in a new city with new friends. Relationships were just waiting to be formed.
Perreault ended up meeting his now ex-girlfriend on Tinder. After his year-long relationship ended, Perreault, now a fourth-year philosophy student, wrote off dating apps.
“I’ve found myself happier for it,” said Perreault.
Now, with his candy-bar style Nokia phone, Perreault tries to make connections the old-fashioned way. He decided to leave dating apps due to the nature of swiping — which he finds swiping superficial.
“You swipe left or right based on your gut reaction of how attractive you think a person is,” said Perreault. “[This is] conducive to shallow short-term relationship building rather than actually building real-life intimacy.”
Dating apps took the immediate in-person rejection out of dating for Perreault and that’s why he thinks they’re so popular within university circles.
On the other hand, Anuja likes dating apps because they make meeting people less daunting. Although, their experiences with the apps have been a “mixed bag.”
They had positive experiences with meeting new people, but has also faced a handful of negative experiences — something they attribute to being a Queer, plus-sized person of colour. But, dating apps have allowed Anuja to foster intimacy with other Queer people in a safe environment.
Queer people are able to date and create relationships through dating apps without wondering if the people they’re interested in are also Queer, something Anuja describes as “having a safety net.”
She’s matched with people, and while there was no romantic connection, they’ve intentionally stayed friends because they didn’t have many Queer friends.
“It's kind of sad, to be honest, that we have to hunt for friendship and companionship in online spaces, because you don't feel safe in doing so in real life,” said Anuja. “These online spaces create a lot of room for connection.”
Dating apps have also made Anuja skeptical about intimate relationship building because it often feels like everyone on dating apps is looking for casual sex. She has found herself become desensitized to flirting.
Goldsmith argues that attitudes around dating offline have changed due to a seemingly “endless supply” of potential beaus on dating apps.
“This might lead some people to sort of give up on relationships earlier on, because they think they could go back [to a dating app] and just find somebody else that fits them better,” said Goldsmith.
According to the 2019 Pew Research Center survey, only 12 per cent of people say that they have been in a relationship with or married a person they met through online dating.
A digital dose of love
With a swipe-based interface, dating apps like Tinder and Bumble mimic social media platforms and allow for a constant stream of validation. This interface essentially “gamifies” dating, according to Goldsmith — making dating apps addictive.
“[Dating apps] work with operant conditioning,” said Goldsmith, which is a type of learning where behaviour is either reinforced or punished.
Your brain then releases chemical messengers like dopamine — a neurotransmitter that is associated with reward — when you swipe through and match with people on dating apps. As positive outcomes result from using the app, your brain engages in a learning process. As this happens time and time again, your brain learns to associate, not only positive experiences on the app with reward but also predictive cues — like swiping. Even if you don’t match with someone, swiping still seems rewarding even if there is no positive outcome from it.
Simply, dating apps are built to be rewarding.
“I think a lot of us just dive into apps treating it like a game,” said Anuja, “and we inevitably get burned.”
According to a 2020 study, being a user of a swipe-based dating app (SBDA), like Tinder, Bumble and Hinge, was associated with having higher levels of psychological distress, anxiety and depression compared to people who do not use SBDA. Dating apps impact users’ self-esteem.
A 2016 study found that Tinder users reported having lower levels of face and body satisfaction, and self-worth than people who did not use Tinder.
Besides the gamification of dating leading to competition, SBDA can impact intimacy within relationships.
For Perreault, intimacy with people he met on dating apps came easily, something he attributes to getting to know people so easily through apps.
Goldsmith spoke to the sense of intimacy. “[People] kind of feel safer being behind their screens in terms of self-disclosure, …which of course can lead to a sense of intimacy.”
Though Perreault found that intimacy came easily through online dating, 66 per cent of people agree that dating apps “take away from the personal touch of meeting someone” according to the 2020 SKYN Condoms Sex & Intimacy Survey.
Anuja believes that dating apps are a capitalistic way to find love. “Love and capitalism are inherently opposing forces,” said Anuja. “There tends to be this nagging thought in the back of your head [saying] ‘I could always find something better.’”
When it comes to dating apps, Goldsmith emphasized the importance of communication and being upfront about what types of connections you want to make, not just to a potential partner but to yourself, too.
“[Many people find] casual sex … really fun and really positive. But oftentimes, they are finding it fun and positive because that's what they're looking for,” said Goldsmith. “For people who are looking for more stable long-term relationships or hoping for a romantic relationship, going into a casual sexual encounter might not be the best way to get that.”
Anuja thinks communication is important too.
“I think the key to navigating apps … is being very clear about who you are and what you want and once you're going, you know what you're comfortable with,” said Anuja.
Anuja has felt herself start to hypersexualize herself and others because of the way she can be fetishized on apps.
“On dating apps when people approach you it's usually with very flirtatious, sexual one-liners,” said Anuja. “Getting used to that overt hypersexualized attention has rendered me practically oblivious to more subtle cues of romantic interest or flirtation.”
A 2018 survey by Statistics Canada found that 18.4 per cent of women and 13.6 per cent of men experienced unwanted sexual behaviour online. 28.2 per cent of women and 18.7 per cent of men took an online protective measure like changing their username or deleting their accounts because of this harassment.
Goldsmith attributes this to people feeling more comfortable saying things that may be more forward while online in comparison to other contexts. “When you’re anonymous or a little bit more anonymous, you can have this higher sense of confidence,” said Goldsmith.
“It's so much easier for people to be disrespectful from behind the keyboard,” said Anuja.
Anuja believes that hookup culture is ingrained in the university experience, even without dating apps.
41.4 per cent of men and 32.6 per cent of women have lied at some point about the number of sexual partners they’ve had, according to a survey by Superdrug Online Doctor that surveyed 2,000 people in the US and Europe.
“I don't think we can pretend like dating apps are the sole perpetrators of hookup culture,” said Anuja. “I think dating apps act as a conduit.”
To swipe or not to swipe
As you finish up your coffee, you decide to pick up your phone one more time to swipe through some singles. You hear chatter in the shop, pencils scratching paper and baristas asking people whether they want their drink hot or iced.
The person reading your favourite book is still sitting across the shop from you. They're cute, you think.
You look back down and pull out your phone. Maybe dating apps just aren't for me, you think.
Left. Left. Left.
It’s the person that was sitting across from you. They have all the same interests as you, listen to your favourite band and are clearly looking for a relationship, whether that be long-term, or a hookup. They are on a dating app, after all.
They’re cute, you think.
Right.
It’s a match. Would you like to message them?
This article is part of Intimacy, The Ubyssey’s 2022 sex issue. You can read more here.