Sometimes, inventions meant to revolutionize the world turn out to be passing fads. The latest example is dating apps. A recent article in The Economist attempted to explain "why people have fallen out of love" with these digital aids to falling in love. Apparently, dating apps peaked in They are now at their lowest number of active users since Some, like Bumble, an app that allowed only women to initiate chats, have tanked so badly they became objects of online ridicule and ditched their "ladies first" model.
Others, like Hinge, which bills itself as "the dating app designed to be deleted," alienated users by putting desirable matches behind paywalls. Downloads of Tinder, the dating-and-hookup app that once ruled the rest, have fallen by a third since Considering the less-than-stellar results of these apps, their decline is not surprising.
Pew Research reports that half of women on the apps rate their experience as "somewhat or very negative.
None of this is to suggest that online dating is hopeless. After all, there are many people, including Christians, who have found loving, lasting relationships using these tools. In fact, some earlier iterations like eHarmony were founded by Christians and, at least in the beginning, did a far better job of leading people toward committed love than the newer, "swipe left, swipe right"-type apps.
Even so, something about seeking love online leaves love frustratingly elusive and fragile. Perhaps it is the disembodied nature of dating apps and how they replace direct experience of a person with a profile that may conceal, intentionally or not, who they are. Like social media, dating apps encourage users to curate identities, putting forward only the most flattering traits and photos while hiding flaws and idiosyncrasies. This kind of self-airbrushing can lead to false pretenses.
