Sometimes an invention that was supposed to revolutionize the world ends up being a passing fad. The latest example is dating apps. recent articles economist tried to explain With these digital aids for falling in love, you can find out why people fall in love.
Apparently it’s a dating app. reached the peak In 2021, the number of active users is the lowest since 2019. Like Bumble, an app where only women can initiate chats. I fell into a very bad situation They became the subject of ridicule online and abandoned the “ladies first” model. Others include Hinge, which advertises itself as a “dating app designed to get deleted.” alienated users By putting the desired matches behind a paywall. Download Tinder, the dating app that once dominated other apps decreased by one third Since 2014.
Their decline is not surprising considering the poor performance of these apps. Only 10% of people are in a committed relationship I met my partner on an app or site. Pew Research reports that half of women who use the app rate their experience as “somewhat negative or very negative.” A study was published in a magazine Computers in human behavior found it“People who dated online reported lower levels of marital satisfaction and stability than those who met their spouse offline.” Research from the Institute of Family Studies. I confirmed this Compared to other ways people meet their spouses (church, parties, friend groups, college, work), online dating was found to have the lowest average marital satisfaction.
None of this suggests that online dating is hopeless. After all, there are many people, including Christians, who have used these tools to find loving, lasting relationships. In fact, some of the early versions, like eHarmony, were founded by Christians and, at least initially, were more likely to lead people to committed love than newer “swipe left, swipe right” type apps. It worked much better.
Still, seeking love online can make it frustratingly elusive and fragile. Perhaps it’s the intangible nature of dating apps and the way they, intentionally or not, replace a person’s direct experience with a profile that hides who they are. Like social media, dating apps encourage users to: curate Make a statement by highlighting your most attractive features and photos while hiding your flaws and idiosyncrasies. This kind of self-airbrushing can lead to false pretenses.
Dating apps are also inherently consumerist, requiring users to judge others like products on a shelf. There’s always a competing product and a better deal just down the aisle. Additionally, the illusion of an endless supply of substitutes can really ruin romance. Nancy Jo Sales writes: guardian:
…People you meet on dating apps do so in an atmosphere where the options are endless. They may have seen hundreds or thousands of photos of people before deciding on a particular person, but they never know that there is a parade of other possible people going on.
Also, in the age of matching apps, it may be difficult to meet people in real life. Almost half of the men Women between the ages of 18 and 25 said they had never directly asked a woman out on a date. According to Acton Institute Fellow Anthony Bradley,Many men will tell their boyfriend that they stay away from women in the real world because they are afraid of being labeled “creepy” or “predator.”
As it becomes clearer that these apps aren’t actually the future of dating, more people will seek alternatives. There appears to be no replacement available on the market at this time. Perhaps it’s because the market is not the best place to create love. Perhaps the solution is to revive the non-airbrushed, face-to-face interactions that led to love and marriage in the past. Perhaps this is a job for . . . Wait for it. . . church and other Christian communities. After all, there is not much room left for personal connections, much less who still think that marriage is a good thing created by God and is life-giving. It is. The church can also provide a built-in accountability structure that is largely lacking in the broader culture.
When I teach at Summit Ministries, I often tell my students: “Look left and right…your future spouse could be in this classroom.” Most people laugh…but many, including me, have married people they met in that classroom. I’m here.
(Disclaimer: Summit Ministries has asked me to specify that this is not a money-back guarantee and that past results do not guarantee future success.)
Whatever strategies Christians employ to bring young couples together, we can recognize truths about humanity and love. As the decline of dating apps shows, people aren’t products, and many are tired of pretending they are.
