Comments in dating apps follow a familiar theme, presenting them as enthusiastic shallowness, objectivity, and STIs while creating a denser disabled generation. Depending on how the author is judged these features can be presented as an endangered threat to civilization or perfectly tragic.
Unfortunately for the authors of these articles, these claims have very little to do with truth, at least in Switzerland – although it is unlikely to stop being written.
Dr. Gina Potarca of the University of Geneva conducted a study of a Swiss couple they met over the past ten years. Relevant questions include how they met, their plans for the future and their satisfaction with the relationship. As mentioned in PLOS ONE, it fills a gap of knowledge on the subject from before; “There were very few measurements of where couples met and when such data was available, the sample of couples formed through dating apps was usually small.”
Dr. Potarca distinguishes between traditional online dating sites – although they now have app versions – and authentic apps like Tinder and Grinder. Websites provide users with detailed information about themselves and on that basis basically show matches, applications based on proximity, users show initial interest based on photographs with very little detailed information in the form of text.
It is certainly admirable that any medium where photographs should initiate communication instead of biographies dominate the decision about whether it would be great for long-term consistency. However, this is not what Potarca found. After controlling factors such as age, religious beliefs, previous relationships, and urban/rural location, Patarka found no significant differences in relationship satisfaction with their partner or those who met offline. Dating websites that match for relevance come to the fore before other ways to meet these criteria, be it through apps or friends, or hobbies. Still, the apps weren’t significantly worse than the other major options.
Nor there was no sign that those who met through the app we’re looking for more concise words. App companies were just as likely to express a desire for marriage as their peers, and in fact, they were eager to go together. In a more deadly push of stereotypes, partners who met through the app were more likely to say they planned to have a child in the near future than they met through any other method, although their male partners may indicate less interest in the track down problems.
But there is a big difference between the duplicate relationship of the applications and the relationship started in another way. Applications create many more social mixes, for example, between different levels of learning partners. This is one of the few features that have been revealed through previous research on the subject that has led the apps to more diverse couples.
Potarca said in a statement, “Knowing that dating apps have probably become even more popular during this year’s lockdown and social distance, it promises to blow away worrying concerns about the long-term effects of using these tools.” Potarca didn’t see how many times matches led to long-term relationships, or what it wanted in proportion to users. Naturally, a study confined to one country is not necessarily a global one, but it is probably more indicative of the situation in another country than an author’s three app-user friends.
