opinion:
Dating apps promise you’ll find your “soul mate” while all you have to do is sit back and wait – and shell out a few dollars for Tinder, Happn, Hinge, Plenty of Fish, OkCupid or any other dating app from the US company Match Group. (Photo illustration: Shutterstock / NTB)
OPINION: Do companies really want you to find a partner, or do they want you to keep paying to search for true love?
Fairy-tale princes and princesses don’t really exist, but dating apps continue to perpetuate the illusion that their platforms alone will help you find that special someone.
Our recent research finds that dating apps employ three key discourses as marketing rhetoric that may actually make it harder to find a partner.
With just a few taps on your smartphone, you can access countless dating apps and start searching for your ideal life partner. The number of dating app users is on the rise, with the online dating market expected to reach 452.5 million users.
No doubt, not being able to find a partner translates into huge profits for dating companies.
Despite widespread support, users frequently express dissatisfaction and frustration, claiming that these apps make finding a life partner complicated. Undoubtedly, the inability to find a partner translates into huge profits for dating companies. As an example, Match Group recorded total revenue of US$3.19 billion in 2022.
So what do dating apps promise to their users? In our study, we analyzed their marketing rhetoric and scrutinized the promises made by dating apps. A critical discourse analysis of 50 dating apps from the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store revealed three main discursive themes that dating apps use to attract users: love, critical mass, and technology.
These discourses can actually make it harder to find a partner. The illusion of romance is the short-sighted side of the partnership coin. Marriage and love evoke different emotions over time.
Romantic love ideal
Love emerges as a central theme in dating apps, promising to find the perfect partner. Rooted in societal expectations of romance and lasting love, the apps construct stories of life-changing experiences and chance encounters.
Users are encouraged to actively search for a “soul mate” who will supposedly bring them happiness and fulfillment, reinforcing hegemonic social conventions regarding love, in which finding a “soul mate” is often associated with a life-changing experience and monogamy is presented as the fundamental norm.
But our focus on a Western, romantic, emotional ideal often overshadows other aspects of relationships, like friendship, conversation partners, and sharing bills and laundry.
Marriage is initially characterized by passionate love, but over time, romantic feelings transform into friendly love, with a deeper level of attachment, security, trust and the creation of a life project together.
A large pool of potential partners
Dating apps strategically communicate the abundance of potential partners by highlighting their past successes, their current user base, and their future projections. This discourse emphasizes the critical mass of members, suggesting that a larger pool increases the chances of finding a suitable match.
Dating apps foster established images of love by addressing the problems users face and aligning them with existing discourses.
Even if you don’t find your “soul mate” right away, you can be assured that you will likely find it in the near future among the app’s growing user base. So if you haven’t met your someone yet, just wait and keep paying your membership fee and “the right person” will likely show up soon.
Technological solutions to finding love
The promise of advanced technology is a third key argument in dating apps: these apps position themselves as a technological solution to the challenge of finding love, emphasizing the selection process, matchmaker algorithms, and technological affordances. The technology argument offers an optimistic, almost magical perspective, presenting algorithms as a tool that enhances users’ ability to choose from a vast number of potential partners.
Our data on what dating apps tell you you want and deserve, plus a huge sample of apps and how their magical technology can make your dreams come true. (Image: Christiania)
Just wait and pay
Dating apps nurture the established image of love by addressing the problems users face along existing lines of argument, and then offer to guide users to their ideal match by referring to a vast pool of candidates available now or in the near future. The apps claim that their matchmaking technology and algorithms will find you the perfect “soul mate.”
The subtheme of having one soul mate and one chosen one overlaps with the theme of a large pool of potential candidates, fuelling the fear of missing out on a potential match. Meanwhile, all you have to do is sit back and wait – and shell out a few bucks for Tinder, Happn, Hinge, Plenty of Fish, OkCupid or any other dating app from US company Match Group.
It is worth noting that we used ChatGPT to proofread this text, which is based on a chapter from the book “Strategic Communication in Digital Ecosystems: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Dating Applications” by Lene Pettersen and Faltin Karlsen. The chapter will be published in the anthology “Strategic Communication – Contemporary Perspectives” by Cappelen Damm, Norway, in early 2024.
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