The Science of Online Dating

my name is bella glanville and

you might recognize me from shows such

as celebsco virtual dating

where i made it to the finale and won

pete wicks’s heart

but i’m also a psychologist and a

motivational writer

and after seeing the title of this talk

you might be thinking

this girl is an expert on online dating

and she’s going to teach us the secret

to cracking the algorithm

well think again because this entire

talk is about why the algorithm

is rubbish i was the only virtual date

that pete had throughout the show yet he

still

chose me and there are a couple of

scientific

theories that could explain why he

preferred me to the in-person dates

when you meet someone online the

characteristics that limit you from

getting into relationships in real life

aren’t there and this is called the

absence of gaiting

shyness awkwardness and irritating

sneeze

these are all things that aren’t present

online but the problem is that we fill

in the gaps of who we think

someone is and we make them out to be

our definition of a dream partner

but people fool us and these gaps that

we fill in aren’t always accurate

an american study actually found that

online data’s

present a more socially desirable self

and even steal

other people’s profile ideas

we also might prefer the people that we

meet online because of the strangers on

a train effect

and there’s been so much research about

this you’re more likely to open up to a

stranger on a train or say

maybe a hairdresser because you can

trust that the information won’t get out

to people that you know

in the same way you’re more likely to

open up to people that you don’t know

online

and a skype study found that people

prefer dates that they can have a deep

intimate conversation with in fact uh

the conversation that i had on my first

celebrity virtual date was very deep

which

probably stood out from the usual

somewhat fruity talk and humorous dates

that you get on that show

there’s also a biological basis behind

why people like to talk about themselves

tamara and mitchell found that when we

do there’s an increased

mri activity in the brain regions

associated with reward

and speaking of reward what was my

reward for making it to the finale of

that dating show

well we never saw each other again

online dating has changed the game of

relationships

nowadays if you don’t like the

relationship that you’re in

you can just swipe left and get a new

one

and a one night stand is now at the end

of people’s fingertips

the instant fix of a tinder match or

scrolling through pawn sites gives

instant gratification but is it truly as

gratifying as

old-fashioned courtship is the catch not

more thrilling when you’ve earned the

thrill of the chase

our attention spans are becoming shorter

and conditions like adhd are escalating

it’s so easy now to switch and change

between

jobs and women and lifestyle that

generation z

feel no reason to settle for fidelity or

loyalty

and that’s why this generation includes

less people who want a monogamous

relationship

we have this notion of entitlement and

we want it all

but the lack of depth in our goals and

life choices

leaves us forever wanting more so now if

we’re sitting on a tinder date

we’re more likely to sit there and think

about who we can swipe right on next

that’s better than the person we’re

already sitting with

so we see potential partners now as more

disposable

because the attention span of society is

becoming so much

shorter in fact a recent study found

that only

50 percent of people on tinder will meet

up with

one of their matches that being said

another study found

72 percent of people with internet

access to be in a relationship

whereas only 36 of people without

internet access

were in a relationship online dating has

displaced the original ways of meeting a

partner

instead of meeting a potential partner

getting a snapshot

impression of how well you interact with

them and then slowly learning facts

about them over time

online dating typically involves

learning a broad range of facts about a

potential partner

before deciding whether or not you want

to meet them in person

but is this a good thing

my friend was talking to a guy

throughout lockdown and as they legally

couldn’t meet in person

they just voice noted every day and

eventually had a seven hour phone call

seven hours so he passed the absence of

gating test

he passed the disposability test but by

the time they were able to meet in

person

they had nothing left to talk about and

that’s why people who match on these

apps often don’t meet in person at all

the boom and bust theory because of the

strangers on a train effect

boom people on these apps get really

close really fast because they open up

to each other

but they don’t know the other person

well enough yet

to give them the trust that they need to

hold and sustain their information

and that causes the relationship to bust

so what does it take to go from matching

on these apps

to actually meeting in person is it

attractiveness

what job they have or is it something

even more shallow

well an italian study actually assessed

people on dating apps

and found that they were more likely to

respond to each other’s messages if they

were equal in attractiveness

but in the skype study that i mentioned

earlier people preferred dates who were

more attractive than them

so this is another problem that online

dating has created for us

we can’t fall in love with people based

off their personalities anymore

they have to pass the attraction test

first

in real life women have been found to

care more about job status and wealth

and men have been found to care more

about physical attractiveness because it

shows the women to be more

healthy and therefore fertile but online

this all gets thrown out the window

a youtube experiment set up two tinder

profiles of a man and a woman

both equal in attractiveness both with

identical discovery settings

they then swiped right on a thousand

people and a day later the mail account

had

216 matches whereas the female account

had 701

so the match rate of the female account

was 43 percent

higher than the one of the male

so their significant gender disparity

when it comes to the importance of

physical attractiveness on dating apps

and as i said this is different in real

life where personality

makes a huge difference in fact in

another

study a man and a woman met their tinder

matches wearing a fat suit

four out of five of the men took off

when they saw the women whereas all of

the women

stayed and got to know the man

so what these studies have shown us is

that online

women care more about superficial

attractiveness

whereas in person it’s the men

and the algorithms of these dating apps

don’t take into account the differences

between what each gender prefers even if

it doesn’t represent what we prefer in

real life

are our virtual preferences just

completely different to the ones we have

in person

and are they successful in helping us

find a long-term partner

well in america alone it’s been found

that only 12 percent of the people who

use these apps have found committed

relationships from them

there’s actually no compelling evidence

that the mathematical algorithms of

these dating apps work

and there’s also no evidence that they

lead to more romantic outcomes

than those created by relationships

formed elsewhere

not only do these algorithms leave out

things such as personality

they don’t take into account the

differences between

each person on these dating apps and

they don’t take into account how each

relationship will develop over time

so these algorithms were only created

for a short-term

initial attraction

when it comes down to it everywhere we

go

people are looking for love think about

it

how many times have you been in a

grocery store made eye contact with

someone

and automatically been convinced that

they’re the love of your life

a movie no matter the genre always tends

to include a romantic plot

and this seems to be reflected in our

lives too

so it was only a matter of time before

romance hit the internet

in fact i’ve actually been asked out a

number of times on linkedin

true story but here’s the paradox

has the internet ruined romance

or simply made it easier

what will the future hold will romantic

tales be turned into stories of

meaningless hookups

will cinderella become tinderella

or do we just need to search for that

faithful 12

so who knows whether i would have made

it to the finale of that dating show

had our first date been in person who

knows

whether a virtual relationship might

boom or bust

but what we do know is that by 2035

the uk has been predicted to reach its

tipping point

with more than 50 percent of

relationships beginning online

online dating has changed the

relationship game

forever

thank you