Online dating, most especially dating apps, is quickly becoming the most common way that romantic relationships begin. Which is absolutely mind blowing, given that online dating became widely known in society in the mid 1990s and was heavily stigmatized to begin with. It didn’t really start catching on with the mainstream public until around 2012 and start becoming the way to meet people. If you look at how people have met and formed relationships within the context of the course of history, and then look at what has happened since the boom of online dating and dating apps, you will realize that in the blink of an eye, the entire landscape of human relationships has changed. There is an upside to dating apps, otherwise they would not have caught on. Things like having access to connecting with people who are outside of your limited social circle and geographic area. Being matched with people according to preferences and compatibilities (which is not immediately obvious when meeting someone face to face). More inclusivity and opportunities for people whose sexuality or orientation is not mainstream. A sense of control and most people finding it easier, less daunting and less high stakes to initiate a conversation with someone they are interested in, etc. But the landscape change of human relationships due to dating apps has not been a thing of beauty. In fact, there have been many profoundly negative effects of dating apps, including many that most people do not see. Here are the top negative impacts of dating apps. 

1. Due to the fact that dating apps are essentially whole data bases of individuals who are looking for romantic and or sexual relationships and that they take in a wide geographical range, dating apps give people a sense of endless opportunity. Because of this, it’s reducing the value of people. People do not value the specific connections and specific people who they come into contact with as much. There is always someone else and always potentially someone better. It has enabled people to become like employers vetting candidates from a never-ending pool. This has also made people become zero effort in their approach to relationships. If anything becomes hard, they can just move on to someone else. This laissez faire, apathetic, grass could always be greener on the other side attitude towards relationships in general has made it so that it is actually harder to establish a relationship with someone and harder to keep the relationship intact, especially when things get less than pleasurable in the relationship. There is no real investment in relationships. The reality is, when it comes to relationships, people need to have their best interests cared for and they have long term needs. Things like attachment, belonging, relationship security, emotional intimacy, to be known, positive ownership, emotional investment and trust are things people need in relationships. These are all long-term needs that require you to put energy and care into the development and strengthening of a relationship. These things take investment. So, people are not getting what they actually need in relationships from dating apps. In the same way that people do not get adequate nutrition from fast food restaurants. Dating apps are the fast food of relationships. Dating apps have effectively corroded a great deal of the energy input and the grip in relationships, which are necessary elements of making a relationship work. Humanity needs to master relationships. Dating apps are not helping people with this at all. 

2. It has created a hook up culture boom. And as it applies to the destruction of human relationships, this is not really an argument about human sexuality or the morality or immorality of casual sex, which is what most people make it about. It is an argument about the boom of zero investment relationships. Dating apps (especially those designed specifically for hook ups) have enabled people to have casual sexual encounters without any emotional intimacy, bonding, commitment or investment. This has increased the degree to which people are simply narcissistically using each other for personal romantic or sexual gratification. It has eradicated the motive and the need to form deep, emotionally intimate, committed and invested relationships in a significant amount of people. It has led many people to feel like while there are endless opportunities to find someone, it is also rare to find someone who wants an actual relationship. Humanity needs to learn relationships. People are not learning relationships when they are normalizing no investment relationships. And because of a great many factors, this hookup culture damages women even more than it does men. Also, because dating apps overwhelmingly cater to hook up culture (the fast-food relationship system) people who are looking at dating apps for their committed, invested relationship needs are often looking for their needs in a place that contradicts their needs.  

3. Because dating apps have become “the way” to meet people now, other ways of meeting people have gone away, making it seem like the only real option. People do not go out to events or places with the idea of meeting potential partners, like they used to. So, people keep to themselves when they are out and about. People don’t approach each other and strike up conversation like they used to. Lots of the events that used to cater to people looking for romantic, sexual partners don’t happen anymore.   

4. It has removed the human element from social interactions. Because dating apps are turning dating into a ‘shopping for people, like you would shop for products at a grocery store’ experience, people are becoming like objects to other people. You can just go for whatever relational need you have in any moment. Which has created a narcissistic dating culture. When you get on a dating app, you are getting on because you have a need. You are “swiping” on whoever you think can meet that need the fastest and best. And people are doing the same to you. Dating apps have made it so that people treat potential romantic candidates like objects rather than people. They forget that there is a person on the other side of the profile and conversation and so, they are not careful about the impact they have on one another. People are also slipping into self-objectification because of all of this. There is a lot of superficiality and there is a lot of hurting going on. Downright ruthlessness if you want the honest truth.   

5. Dating apps are like a menu that disgustingly simplify who someone is. They take all the complexity of a person and whittle it down to essentially a marketing pitch. Something that does not show you the reality of who someone is, at all. People also do not understand themselves enough to accurately portray the reality of themselves. So, it puts you in the position of having to meet them in person, to see if 1. They have accurately described themselves. 2. If they are a match to what you are looking for. And when someone does this over and over and over and it’s a no, they start to feel a sense of burn out, futility and bitterness relative to relationships, become more narcistic and put less effort into relationships themselves. They may even withdraw from them completely.  

6. Dating apps promote relationships on the basis of superficiality, and especially physical appearance. The dating apps of today encourage you to create a profile to showcase superficial things, such as images to show people what you look like, what your hobbies and interests are, what kinds of things you like sexually. These are not the qualities that determine whether a relationship will work. They are also not the qualities that determine compatibility or lack thereof. What someone looks like, does not tell you who they are or what they will be like in relationships. Nor do any of these other superficial things. Due to this, people are passing up potentially very compatible people and they are thinking they are a match to people they are not actually compatible with at all. And they are thinking that a superficial approach to relationships works, when it doesn’t.            

7. Because of the nature of dating apps, dating apps have given rise to a situation where people’s negative beliefs about relationships are being reinforced, rather than healed. Beliefs like, I’ll never find a relationship with a woman if I’m not tall enough. No one will want me unless I make enough money. The only thing that matters to men is looks. Men only want 20-year-olds. People just want sex. All people do is lie. I’m easily replaceable. There is no one out there for me, etc. As such, they have made it so people are not healing their relational traumas. Instead, they are getting more damaged and are becoming worse at relationships.   

8. Ghosting has become a common and normalized social behavior. Ghosting being to end a relationship and withdraw from all communication suddenly and without any explanation. This is a horrible social behavior that has deep negative impact on a person’s wellbeing.  

9. Negative impacts on self-esteem and mental and emotional health. This should be obvious given the previous points I have mentioned. But on top of this, dating apps have made rejection a super frequent if not consistent part of social interaction. And due to the aforementioned factors as well as the barrier that exists between people when they are not face to face, people have much less of a problem rejecting each other over a digital platform, either by ghosting or communicating that you are not what they are looking for. You’re essentially marketing yourself to be judged and tried out and rejected by people. This can increase a sense of despair relative to finding someone who will want you. Anxiety about whether people will like you. And this leads people to feel like there is something wrong with them and like they are undesirable and dig a sense of loneliness deeper and deeper into their being. This pain can cause a person to withdraw from relationships all together in anticipation of rejection.

10. Duping. This is an issue when it comes to dating in general. But dating apps have rolled out the red carpet for the human shadows of deceit, anonymity, lying and duping to reign supreme. People can catfish, lie to you about themselves and their intentions, present a totally false image of themselves and cause all kinds of pain while hiding behind an online façade. They have even encouraged this deception by making it so that the name of the game is to present yourself in a way that other people will want you, as opposed to presenting the reality of who you are. And the nature of dating aps makes it feel like the only way to get someone to not reject you, is to play this deception game. Also, dating apps are littered with dangerous dating app scams.     

11. Dating apps are making it so many people are not out in the world living. They are on their phones, pouring all of their energy into things like constantly updating their profile and constantly checking to see if someone has liked them. And constantly messaging with multiple people. And constantly doom scrolling profiles. Chasing the “high” of being admired. There is a stressful, addictive quality to it that can consume all of your time and energy. This damages your other relationships; limits the time and energy you can put into other things that are important and meaningful to put time and energy into. And it robs us of your engagement with the present moment. Dating apps can become a real accessory to the squandering of your life.

All of these negative impacts have made it so that dating apps have given rise to more pain in relationships and a collective hopelessness about relationships. Society has made people feel like relationships are painful and too hard. This is true for so many reasons from the traditional structure of relationships no longer working in today’s modern world to autonomy and independence becoming such a cardinal societal value to all the truly damaging behaviors people exhibit towards each other. To marketing and social media setting an ideal no one can live up to. Dating apps have come onto the scene and they have been presented as the way to get your relational needs met. But they change nothing about the dysfunction in human relationships at this point in time. Neither do they teach nor promote any of the relationship skills that could put an end to these oppositional factors to human relationships. They simply put you in touch with more people. So, dating apps are just highlighting and amplifying, if not playing into all of the relationship dysfunction amongst humans. The only thing that will lead to what most people are actually wanting and needing in relationships, is investment. Most especially the investment in mastering relationships.