The Unbearable Sadness of Online Dating

Reporting and Data from Norway Shows how Bad Things Have Become

Intrigued by a longer profile of a young woman over at NRK, which appeared a few days ago, today we shall dive into the (drastic) consequences of the internet age.

The below is an amalgamation of this piece on the use of dating apps (NRK, by Kirsti Kringstad and colleagues, 14 Feb. [sic] 2024) and a recent study on social media use by Norwegian young adults (Finserås et al., ‘Reexploring Problematic Social Media Use and Its Relationship with Adolescent Mental Health’, 2023).

[Edit: I realised that the first part grew quite long, hence I’ll discuss that study in a second part].

All translations and emphases mine, as are the bottom lines.

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The Unspeakable Sadness of Being Young

‘Julie (27) Has Less Faith of Finding Love After Being on Dating Apps’, the NRK article opens, adding that while ‘she’s not alone’, she ‘doesn't plan to delete Tinder’ either.

Caption: ‘Julie…can well understand why many are losing faith in love because of apps like Tinder, Hinge, or the like.’

For about eight years, Julie Bratseth Håkonsen (27) has been on and off dating apps. Matches have resulted in 10-20 dates and a few situationships. But what she really wants is a long-term relationship.

She has lost count of how many times she has deleted or paused the apps [more than one ‘dating app’] Sometimes she has dropped out because she has had something going on with someone. Other times because she’s tired of swiping.

But she’s always come back. Recently it was back on again. She feels she should be there.

Call me old-fashioned, but after reading these few lines, I felt somewhere between depressed and desperate. I mean—eight years, ‘10-20 dates’ (a difference of 100%), and ‘a few situationships’ (by which I understand ‘one-night stands’ or the like)—it means Julie has been using these apps (in the plural) basically since she graduated from high school.

For whatever reason, Julie adds that she has ‘often thought that it would have been easier to grow up when my mum and dad did—without all these apps’.

This is, of course, hardly an understatement, because the 27 year-old epitomises the first ‘internet generation’: born in 1997, both Julie and the internet grew up in lockstep, and for those like her and younger, there’s never been a world without the internet (Matrix™).

I have the benefit of being a bit older (some 15 years, to be precise), hence I do remember the world before the commercialisation of the internet. I do remember way fewer TV channels, the advent of private cable news in Central Europe in the early 1990s (mainly MTV), and the crappy web browsers of yesteryear. Everything now appears ‘low-tech’, mainly texts, and low-resolution images. A lot of these things changed rapidly in the intervening decades, but I recall a childhood without many of these ‘perks’ or ‘attractions’.

Of course, he who says ‘the internet’ must also contend with the fact that sizeable share of websites, right from the start, contain ‘adult’ content. This is also mentioned in the NRK piece, albeit in a highly sanitised fashion:

The first online dating site came in the 90s. Since then, many dating apps have come along. Tinder, which was launched in autumn 2012, is the world's most widely used. Today, it is one of many on the same street. Hinge, Happn, Bumble, Raya—to name a few.

You know what else happened in 2012, by the way? ‘Social media’ came into being, which was only possible upon the introduction of the so-called ‘smart phones’, by Apple, in 2007.

As an aside, I also remember the 1990s TV series ‘The X Files’, which had one over-arching plot of a secretive gov’t cabal trying to prepare and manage the advent of what UFO/UAP afficionados call ‘disclosure’; it included fictional plans by said cabal of implanting microchips into the general public to surveil everyone—and, fast forward to today, there’s no need: most people carry their ‘smart phone’ everywhere, few disable whatever ‘location services’ may be shut down (?) by the ‘user’, and many also use so-called ‘wear-ables’ (‘smart watches’ and the like) that virtually constantly gather copious amounts of data and transmit it to corporations. The latter often (typically) then share these data with third-party contractors and/or the ‘intelligence community’. Reality, in other words, has somehow bypassed ‘fiction’, but I digress.

To figure out what is going on with young people, NRK, to its credit, actually commissioned a survey. It’s results are eye-opening: one in three have lost faith in love after using these apps (which, to me, begs the question as to why these young people have placed ‘faith’ in them in the first place, which I shall dissect in the second part of this piece below).

Håkonsen: ‘I’ve lost a little faith in love with dating apps. I’m in my fourth year of being single and haven’t found anyone yet.’ Anyone with whom to build a long-term relationship and eventually found a family, that is.

NRK has shared the findings of the survey with Match Group, the company behind Tinder and Hinge, among others. They responded that the results of the survey do not match the trends they themselves see across their platforms, without elaborating further.

‘We know that dating can be difficult, so we want to continue to solve this for our users and give them great experiences so they cheer for our brands and are empowered to create life-changing relationships.’

At this point, we need to take another ‘detour’ down the rabbit-hole known as corporate finance. Reading through mandatory disclosures is way better than boilerplate statements like the one above, hence we shall briefly consult Match Group’s most recent SEC 10-K filing for the fiscal year ending 31 Dec. 2023.

Who we are

Match Group, Inc., through its portfolio companies, is a leading provider of digital technologies designed to help people make meaningful connections. Our global portfolio of brands includes Tinder, Hinge, Match, Meetic, OkCupid, Pairs, Plenty Of Fish, Azar, BLK, and more, each built to increase our users’ likelihood of connecting with others. Through our trusted brands, we provide tailored services to meet the varying preferences of our users. Our services are available in over 40 languages to our users all over the world…

The business of creating meaningful connections

Our goal is to spark meaningful connections for users around the world. Consumers’ preferences vary significantly, influenced in part by demographics, geography, cultural norms, religion, and intent (for example, seeking friendship, casual dang, or more serious relationships). As a result, the market for social connection apps is fragmented, and no single service has been able to effectively serve all of those seeking social connections.

Prior to the proliferation of the internet and mobile devices, human connections traditionally were limited by social circles, geography, and time. People met through work colleagues, friends and family, in school, at church, at social gatherings, in bars and restaurants, or in other social settings. Today, the adoption of mobile technology and the internet has significantly expanded the ways in which people can create new interactions, and develop meaningful connections and relationships. Additionally, the ongoing adoption of technology into more aspects of daily life continues to further erode biases and stigmas across the world that previously served as barriers to individuals using technology to help find and develop those connections.

Why, then, would people like Julie and many others fail to find earnest partners?

Depending on a person’s circumstances at any given me, social connection apps can act as a supplement to, or substitute for, traditional means of meeting people.

So, according to Match Group’s own filings, its products may or may not work. They do make money be selling subscriptions and advertisement space, although Match Group claims the former easily outpaces the latter.

One crucial aspect to know about their products, though, is Match Group’s incentive behind offering these ‘connectivity’ services: sure, every company needs to have earnings, but it is quite different in this context:

We seek to tailor each of our brands and services to meet the preferences of specific geographies, demographics, and other communities of users…

Attracting and retaining users for our services involve considerable expenditures for online and offline marketing. Historically, we have had to increase our marketing expenditures over me in order to attract and retain users and sustain our growth…

Evolving consumer behavior can affect the availability of profitable marketing opportunities…

The success of our services will depend, in part, on our ability to access, collect, and use personal data about our users and subscribers…in order to maintain our profit margins, we have taken steps to, and in the future may need to further, offset increasing app store fees by decreasing traditional marketing expenditures, increasing user volume or monetization per user, consolidating back-office and technical functions, or by engaging in other efforts to increase revenue or decrease costs generally.

Here, expectably, we can clearly see through the corporate boilerplate and the devastation these apps have wrought upon Julie and so many of her generation.

First of all, despite their blabber, Match Group and their ilk ‘access, collect, and use personal data’ to make money, which includes the sharing of said data with third parties (Facebook is specifically mentioned, but it’s certainly not the only one).

Second, to ‘maintain…profit margins’, Match Group and their ilk must keep their users in constant limbo. Put differently, trusting a big multinational corporation with your emotional and psychological well-being is a stupid thing to do in the first place, but once you understand how this perverse incentive structure ‘works’ (ahem), there’s little else left to do—but delete these apps for good.

Yet, as Julie said so herself, she’s tried to do so, but she hasn’t been successful, and we shall revisit the addictive qualities of social media a bit later. For now, we shall return to the NRK piece to learn about how these apps affect and modify human behaviour.

The Way these Apps Change Human Nature

Under the header ‘less picky in real life’, Julie Håkonsen explains that she has noticed a pattern with her own dating app behaviour.

‘I'm super picky! I overanalyse and pick at little things: “He looked weird in that one picture.” “He phrased himself a bit oddly.”

If the first meeting is face-to-face, it’s completely different.

‘If a man comes over and is funny, or I see that he shows consideration for others and is polite, a process starts in me that this is a good guy. This is much more difficult through a screen.

See how Tinder or the like modifies your behaviour? Remember, the apps’ incentive is to keep you ‘swiping’, hence their algorithm ‘might’ (sic) feed its users such profiles—and it’s not too far-fetched to consider this highly likely.

Let’s turn to ‘the Science™’ for more insights, o.k.? NRK also asked Tond Viggo Grøndtvedt, a researcher at the Department of Psychology at NTNU in Trondheim, and learned the following:

‘In a real-world relationship, it’s probably more acceptable for someone to say or do something awkward’, says Trond Viggo Grøntvedt who has conducted research on Tinder use among students, among other things. According to him, many people find it easy to break off contact with a flirt they have met on a dating app as soon as they get a hint of an ick or see a hint of a red flag.

Grøntvedt adds: ‘I can understand why people lose faith’, explaining that ‘another reason for less faith in love is failed dates’. If the first “meeting” happens on an app, important information is lost. Body odour, body language and how the person is towards others.’

He also points out that dating apps may contribute to people giving up on a relationship more quickly: ‘You don’t get relationships that are rosy all the time. Relationships are also about compromise, arguing, and conflict. Today, it's very easy to download an app and start all over again.’

In that NRK piece, we also learn about one Ane Sideri Hagen who is described as a ‘matchmaker’ whose ‘job [it] is to create safe and long-lasting relationships by connecting people who are compatible with each other’.

One of the problems with Tinder and the like, she believes, is that ‘everyone’ is there—even those who don’t want something that will last.

‘A lot of people are tricked into potential relationships because the other person is on the dating apps for validation or to play around. When you have many bad experiences, you lose faith in finding what you want.’

One in three Norwegians aged 18 to 29 are on dating apps for casual sex, according to a survey by NRK.

NTNU professor Mons Bendixen says that a common perception is that ‘everyone’" gets what they want via the apps.

‘But only one in five people find a girlfriend via Tinder, and only one in five people have casual sex there’, says the professor, referring to this study on students on Tinder.

‘People become disillusioned and disappointed, and think that they are very unattractive and unsuccessful. The amount of rejection you get on Tinder is a big problem’, he says.

At this point in time, the article swerves once more and returns to Julie. She ‘experienced a blow to her confidence when she downloaded the dating app Hinge’, which differs from Tinder because, among other things, ‘you only get a limited number of profiles per day’.

‘On Tinder, it might say ‘99+ likes are waiting for you’ [which may or may not be true]. On Hinge, I realised that I wasn't getting any likes and that no one liked me back. It became very clear. I started to overanalyse my profile - and myself.’

Now the 27-year-old is more relaxed about Hinge, and thinks it's perfectly fine to be both there and on Tinder. But she has no doubts: she would prefer to find a companion in the real world.

‘Perhaps the best thing would have been to meet someone when I was a student. We had so many arenas to meet other people. Now that I'm working, I have to actively seek them out myself. Meeting through mutual acquaintances or a common interest is probably the optimal thing now.’

Fat chance. I spent most of my adult life within academic groups of the various kinds, and I can tell you one thing: men and women are different, and these differences matter profoundly (see below for more ‘insights’ into this). While I wish Julie all the best, the odds are stacked against her by now, and they won’t decline as time goes.

Disingenuously, NRK concludes the piece in this way:

But the hope that he is in the app universe is still alive. Maybe he’s behind the next swipe?

While it’s not impossible, it’s highly improbable—which brings me to the ‘bottom lines’. Also, state broadcaster NRK, don’t shill for corporations.

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Bottom Lines

This is so incredibly sad, but it shows masterfully one of the core problems across the world—declining birth rates and fertility.

Its key reasons, as this piece clearly shows, may be categorised as follows:

People are spending way too much time ‘getting an education’ as young adults, which incl. fraternity parties; at the same time, the value-added by a university degree decreases rapidly.

Men and women aren’t that different, but they differ in one key respect related, ultimately, to biology: fertility declines rapidly after women hit 30, and while male fertility also declines, being a 40 year-old man with a 20-something female partner means higher chances of successful reproduction.

Odds are stacked massively against women, not ‘merely’ because of (2) but also because young men are particularly unattractive these days. No, I don’t mean their appearance or the like, but they are demonised across the board, don’t attend university at the same rates (60% or more of undergraduates are now women), and once one considers hypergamy (‘looking for partners of higher status and wealth’), no further explanation is given.

Dating apps are an abomination as they foster ‘hook-up culture’ that is rendering women increasingly ‘worthless’ in terms of their attractiveness for long-term partnerships. Here’s a ‘secret’—when looking for long-term partners, men don’t tend to for high ‘body counts’, which is exactly the behaviour fostered by apps like Tinder or Hinge.

Speaking of apps and social media in particular, let’s not forget that these are designed to create, and subsequently reward, addictive-compulsive behaviour.

As a happily married man and proud father, I’m not handing out relationship advice (also, I doubt I could do that as well as, e.g., Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro), but on the odd occasion that someone like Julie reads these pages, here’s some free life advice: delete these apps, go and meet real people while doing something you like, e.g., hiking, attend church, or sign up for a local club to meet real people.

Everything else is virtual and therefore ‘un-real’, to say nothing about you giving up your innermost self, including one’s body, to a corporation that capitalises on your sadness.

Talk about ‘alienation’ and ‘exploitation’—where are, by the way, all those leftist analysts if one could actually need them for a change?

To be continued in part 2.