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JustinFlaumenhaftFirstPaper 6 - 06 May 2022 - Main.JustinFlaumenhaft
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| | | The Indignity of Online Dating Apps | |
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< | Like Facebook or Google, the business models of dating apps are based on, as Shoshana Zuboff puts it, trading in “human futures.” But the way these apps engage users, and cause them to engage with each other, is particularly dehumanizing. Users are not only the products, but the ones selling theirselves. They craft profiles to catch the attention of another person swiping through a catalogue of thousands of other humans. Moreover, the user interface is often deliberately made to feel like a game and keep you swiping. The purpose of all this is not to help you find love, but to keep you playing the game as long as it is profitable for the company. This set up encourages users to treat others without dignity: to view dating as online shopping and fellow daters as replaceable commodities. | >
> | The way that dating apps engage users is particularly dehumanizing. The typical app has users swipe through a catalogue of thousands of other humans. Every profile is an advertisement of sorts. Users are not only the products, but are also in charge of selling themselves. Moreover, the user interface is often deliberately made to feel like a game and keep you swiping. The purpose of all this is not to help users find love, but to keep them playing the game as long as it is profitable for the company. This set up encourages users to treat others without dignity: to view dating as online shopping and fellow daters as replaceable commodities. | | | | |
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< | And yet, millions of people (including nearly 50% of young adults in the US!) opt into this dystopian marketplace. They share their most intimate secrets while the dating apps take notes behind the one-way mirrors of smartphones. Why does anyone stand for this, let alone voluntarily participate in it? Part of the answer, of course, involves “convenience.” Dating apps make meeting people as easy as food delivery apps make dining: users are provided with a streamlined catalogue of options made more or less instantly available. But an additional factor which should not be underestimated is the powerful human desire for connection. As more and more people join dating apps, and fewer meet outside these walled gardens, their magnetic pull becomes stronger. The apps prey upon primal desires for love and sex, and the widely felt fear of being alone. | >
> | And yet, millions of people (including nearly 50% of young adults in the US!) opt into this dystopian marketplace. They share their most intimate secrets while the dating apps take notes behind the one-way mirrors of smartphones. Why does anyone stand for this, let alone voluntarily participate in it? Part of the answer, probably, involves “convenience.” Dating apps make meeting people as easy as food delivery apps make dining: users are provided with a streamlined catalogue of options made more or less instantly available.
But an additional factor to consider is the deeply imbedded drive for connection shared by most human beings.The desire for emotional and sexual companionship has propelled the propagation of our species and tied us together. It is these primal and powerful drives that the dating apps prey upon. As more and more people join dating apps,and fewer meet outside these walled gardens, the potential for connection on these apps increases, and their magnetic pull grows stronger. | | |
[Word count: 999] |
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