With the U.S. grappling with an existential crisis in government, the efficacy of dating apps may not be defined as a calamity. However, for millions searching for a connection with another, loneliness is not an acceptable alternative.
With users increasingly critical of dating apps, debates have sprung up about their safety, effectiveness, and financial value.
Is it Time to Break Up with Dating Apps? That's the question under debate in the special Valentine's Day episode of the podcast Open to Debate, which was taped live at the Comedy Cellar last week.
Fourth-generation matchmaker Maria Avgitidis argues YES.
Tinder's Global CMO Melissa Hobley argues NO.
Journalist Nayeema Raza moderates.
Watch or listen to the debate at OpentoDebate.org, YouTube, or your podcast platform of choice (under podcast name "Open to Debate").
Sample the arguments via a Psychology Today report from the taping:
The Arguments Against Dating Apps
Avgitidis argued that dating apps present people with the "paradox of choice": The seemingly unlimited numbers of matches leads them to make poor decisions. "Because of indecision, superficial characteristics rise to the top," she stated and gave examples of people filtering for potential matches based on things like height and appearance, which could lead a person to overlook those who would be real matches because of more important stuff like shared values.
Moreover, "people become disposable [because of dating apps]," she asserted. "People treat people terribly." Dating apps, she said, have resulted in the "gamifying of dating" and people "not really connecting." Avgitidis pointed to "faux validation," whereby people rack up matches on dating apps to boost their ego rather than take a real interest in connecting. She warned that a big part of dating on apps is figuring out the algorithms rather than authentic connecting.
The Arguments for Dating Apps
In her counterpoints, Hobley emphasized that dating apps have led to many relationship pairings and read some of the engagement and marriage notes that have resulted from dating app connections. She also asked how many in the audience started a relationship because of a dating app or know someone who has, which elicited a lot of positive "wooooos." Then there was the bird-in-hand example Hobley provided—former Philadelphia Eagle Jason Kelce meeting his wife, Kylie, on Tinder about a decade ago—to make her argument that "dating apps introduce you to people whom you otherwise would not have met."
She emphasized the convenience of dating apps. People spending
more time alone, given the prevalence of remote work, makes it harder to
meet others without a dating app. And, she observed, people often come
out as LGBTQ+ on Tinder before they do so in real life, and single moms
do not otherwise have the time to meet others. "The phone is the center
of our lives now," Hobley emphasized. "Apps meet you where you are."
Wherever you fall on the dating apps effectiveness scale, check out the Open To Debate podcast. We need more honest debate in this nation. Right now, we have screaming, blaming, and fossilized confirmation bias. Let's open our minds to debating the critical issues of the day, instead of insisting that we have all the answers to make things great again. (Note: They were never great.)
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