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