Everyone I know has either deleted dating apps, stopped using them, or is considering it.
asserted
I → know → it
The icons lie dormant on their phones: technically still there, but rarely opened and no longer expected to deliver anything meaningful.
asserted
icons → lie → anything
I have used multiple dating apps over the past eight years, and I have never formed a relationship with anyone I met on them.
asserted
I → use → them
I have rarely even gone on a second date with someone from a dating app.
asserted
I → go → app
Most first dates end in disappointment, mutual ghosting, or both.
asserted
dates → end → disappointment
Social media is full of people declaring that dating apps are dying, and a 2026 Harris Poll found that two-thirds of singles weren’t using them, while 80% of Americans viewed meeting someone in real life as “cute” or “cool.”
asserted
% → declare → life
Over the past year, I have also found myself far more interested in men I meet in real life.
asserted
I → find → life
My theory is that dating apps are dying because they don’t encourage the patience, curiosity, and emotional investment that dating requires.
asserted
dating → die → that
The apps promise abundance: hundreds or even thousands of potential partners, all accessible from the couch.
asserted
all → promise → couch
But that abundance creates its own burden.
asserted
abundance → create → burden
Every session requires users to make a relentless series of small decisions—whether to swipe, initiate a conversation, maintain it, arrange a date, or keep looking for someone better.
asserted
session → require → someone
There is evidence that this process becomes emotionally exhausting.
asserted
process → be → ?
A longitudinal study led by Liesel Sharabi, director of the Relationships and Technology Lab at Arizona State University, followed dating-app users for 12 weeks and found that emotional exhaustion and feelings of inefficacy increased over time.
asserted
exhaustion → lead → time
“From a cognitive perspective, one reason may be the scale of the task,” says Samuel Hipkiss, a postdoctoral researcher in psychology at the University of Bath.
uncertain
Hipkiss → say → Bath
Dating apps expose us to far more potential partners than we would encounter offline, requiring hundreds of judgments about people we know almost nothing about.
asserted
we → expose → nothing
The end result is decision fatigue and cynicism, he explains.
asserted
he → explain → ?
Of course, rejection has always been part of dating, but apps dramatically increase our exposure to it.
asserted
apps → increase → it
Every unanswered message, vanished match, and unexplained ghosting carries a small emotional cost.
asserted
message → vanish → cost
Over time, Hipkiss says, users may lose faith in the process and become less willing to invest emotionally in any individual connection.
uncertain
users → say → connection
I have felt myself doing exactly that.
asserted
myself → feel → that
Two years ago, I met someone on Hinge and went on five dates with him.
asserted
I → meet → him
I kept accepting because I wanted to prove that I was still trying, and because social media had convinced me to believe in the “slow burn.”
asserted
media → keep → burn
But the sad truth is that the dates continued not because I particularly liked him.
asserted
I → continue → him
They continued because he seemed about 30% better than the other men I had met through the apps.
asserted
I → continue → apps
Eventually, he realized that I was not truly interested and ended things with me.
asserted
I → realize → me
I had mistaken the absence of an immediate disaster for the presence of a connection.
asserted
I → mistake → connection
Dating apps make that mistake easier because they turn a complicated social process into something immediate and measurable.
asserted
they → make → something
In contrast, offline attraction develops through ambiguous signals: conversation, familiarity, body language, timing, and the gradual accumulation of knowledge about another person.
asserted
attraction → develop → person
Apps reduce that uncertainty to a series of unmistakable outcomes.
asserted
Apps → reduce → outcomes
In other words, they have gamified dating.
asserted
they → gamifie → dating
But falling in love and building a relationship aren’t competitions to be won or algorithms that can be hacked.
asserted
that → fall → relationship
Philosopher Karim Nader has argued that dating apps transform the complex process of choosing a partner into a sequence of simple, discrete decisions.
asserted
apps → argue → decisions
The goal can quietly shift from forming a relationship to accumulating matches.
asserted
goal → shift → matches
Matches offer a clear metric of success and an immediate burst of validation, even when neither person intends to begin a conversation.
asserted
person → offer → conversation
Because they arrive unpredictably, they can operate as intermittent rewards: each disappointing swipe carries the possibility that the next one will produce a match.
asserted
one → arrive → match
That uncertainty keeps us returning.
asserted
uncertainty → keep → us
But it can also separate the immediate reward of receiving a match from the longer-term goal of forming a relationship.
asserted
it → separate → relationship
I see this every time I open dating apps.
asserted
I → see → apps
Yesterday, I matched with 12 men.
asserted
I → match → men
Only two messaged me.
asserted
two → message → me
…and 26 more, not listed.
