This is your brain on dating apps

A young passenger checks his cell phone on a train between Paris and Tournan-en-Brie with flowers in tow. In a 2023 Pew report, 53 percent of participants under 30 said they've used dating apps to find love.

This is your brain on dating apps

“The brain is ready to get addicted, particularly when it comes to love,” one expert says.

For modern romantics, the “swipe right” feature on dating apps has become a colloquial shorthand for attraction—and the pursuit of love itself. Now, it’s under fire.

On Valentine’s Day, a lawsuit filed by six people accused popular dating apps of designing “addictive, game-like” features made to “lock users into a perpetual pay-to-play loop.”

Match Group, the owner of several popular online dating services and the defendant in the case, wholly rejects the criticism, saying the lawsuit “is ridiculous and has zero merit.”

But the news has also brought attention to an ongoing debate: Are these products truly addictive? And is unhealthy user behavior more the fault of dating apps or the challenge of building healthy technology habits in an increasingly digital world?"

What happens when we swipe?

The possibility that the perfect match is just one swipe away can be irresistible.

“The brain is ready to get addicted, particularly when it comes to love,” says Helen Fisher, biological anthropologist and senior research fellow at the Kinsey Institute of Indiana University. These apps are “selling life’s greatest prize.”

Elias Aboujaoude, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Stanford, says dating apps give users a “rush” that comes from receiving a like or a match. Though the exact mechanisms at play are unclear, he speculates that a dopamine-like reward pathway may be involved.

“We know that dopamine is involved in many, many addictive processes, and there's some data to suggest that it's involved in our addiction to the screen,” he says. 

Part of the problem is that much remains unknown about the world of online dating. Not only are the companies’ algorithms proprietary and essentially a black box of matchmaking, but there’s also a dearth of research about their effects on users. “This is something that remains severely understudied,” Aboujaoude says. 

Amie Gordon, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, agrees, saying predicting compatibility is “a big known mystery” among relationship researchers. “We don't know why certain people end up together.”

Match Group declined to comment on how they determine compatibility. However, in a recent interview with Fortune Magazine, Hinge CEO Justin McLeod denied the app uses an “attractiveness score,” and instead builds a “taste profile” based on each user’s interests as well as like and dislike patterns. In a company post, Hinge says they use the Gale-Shapley algorithm to pick pairs most likely to match.

Are these apps designed to be addictive?

As with any other social media platform, there’s reason to believe that dating apps want to keep their users engaged. “Dating apps are companies,” says Kathryn Coduto, an assistant professor of media science at Boston University. “These are people that are trying to make money, and the way they make money is by having users stay on their applications.”

Match Group denies the allegation that their apps are designed to promote and profit off of engagement rather than connection. “We actively strive to get people on dates every day and off our apps,” a company spokesperson said. “Anyone who states anything else doesn't understand the purpose and mission of our entire industry.” In his Fortune interview, McLeod also maintained Hinge’s algorithm isn’t trying to steer users to pay for a subscription.

Fisher, the longtime chief scientific adviser for Match.com, agrees, saying the best thing for business is for users to find love and tell their friends to sign up too.

Cheng “Chris” Chen, as assistant professor of communication design at Elon University, says that while the specific algorithms are kept secret, the way they’re designed is “not exactly neutral. Take swiping: it is just more fun than tapping, making the whole process feel more like a game,” she says.

Dating apps also use clever tactics to keep users coming back, she says, such as push notifications and the “random rewards they offer, which really get our brains excited because we can’t predict when we’ll get a match.”

As social media platforms go, Stanford sociology professor Michael Rosenfeld sees dating apps as relatively useful and true to their intended goal.

“The reality is people are making relationships and uninstalling the apps in the millions every year,” he says. “Ultimately, the app wouldn't have any users if they weren't connecting real people to each other.” 

Is the problem dating apps, social media, or mental health?

Scientists have observed people exhibiting unhealthy behaviors on dating apps—much like those seen on other social media platforms.

“To me it’s a very blurry line between what dating apps do and what social media have done,” says Aboujaoude. People “start relying on dating apps for self-esteem purposes, for superficial connectedness, for temporary boosts to their mood.”

Whether this behavior constitutes a true addiction, however, is a matter of debate.

Coduto says she’s hesitant to ascribe a medical diagnosis to compulsive dating app usage. There’s no widely accepted definition for addiction in the context of social media, and the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders doesn’t recognize either internet or social media addiction as a medical disorder. 

Still, she says, some of the hallmarks of addiction are present—like compulsively checking dating apps and even experiencing withdrawal. 

This behavior is most pronounced among people experiencing social anxiety and loneliness, according to Coduto, whose research has shown that the interaction between those two emotional states leads to compulsive dating app use. Aboujaoude, too, has observed people spending hours on dating apps as a coping mechanism for depression or anxiety, which also leads to significantly lower user satisfaction. Even if that doesn’t meet the criteria for addiction, Aboujaoude says, “the fact is it has the markings of pathological behavior.”

But the idea that apps are turning people into lonely, swiping zombies might be more moral panic than reality. 

About 15 million new romantic or sexual relationships form in the U.S. every year, says Rosenfeld. Just because not every person will find a perfect match in their preferred time frame doesn’t mean the apps aren’t working.

“I don’t agree with the lawsuit that Match [Group] is preying on people,” he says. “I think they’re actually doing pretty efficient match-making work.”

With infinite choices just one swipe away, he adds, “it's harder for people to find the other person who's exactly what they want...And that is frustrating."

While users would benefit from clarifying their motivations for swiping, experts say dating apps could also be more transparent about their algorithms and build interfaces that emphasize real connection over instant gratification.

“Imagine an app that reminds you, ‘You have swiped 50 times in the last 5 minutes. Maybe take a break?’” Chen says. “This kind of feature encourages users to reflect on their behavior and manage their time on the app more consciously.”

Sourced from National Geographic ‍