ANALYSIS OF “WINNINGS USERS “ ON ONLINE DATING PLATFORMS
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs puts love as a fundamental human need, hence the search for love. However, conventional methods of meeting possible companions are slowly becoming replaced by the development of online dating. Since the very beginning, the internet has played a significant role in social interactions. The developments of online dating sites such as Tinder and Bumble has aided in the search for a soul mate. The online dating system works with people present themselves online in search of a personal, romantic, or sexual relationship. Tinder was founded in 2012 by Jonathan Badeen, Joe Munoz, Justin Mateen, Chis Gylczynski, Dinesh Mrjani, and Whitney Wolfe. Bumble was founded by ex-Tinder founder, Whitney Wolfe, in 2014, after a bitter exit to add a more feminist perspective to Tinder’s system (Mcdonald & Koning, 2019). Unlike Tinder, which allows anyone from both genders to initiate a conversation, Bumble only allows women to initiate the conversation. In both similar systems, users must enable their location in their smartphone, thus granting the app access to that information and filter who they are presented with by gender, distance, and location. Some of the main determining factors in online dating are gender, profile photos, and introduction. Each of these factors is the basis for matchmaking in the industry.
Gender plays a fundamental role in the online dating world. There are diverse ways to commence a relationship, with traditional factors suggesting that men are always required to make the first move. Though with the arrival of other online dating platforms such as Bumble, which claims to be ‘100% feminist’ to upset this form of gender stereotype. In Bumble, women exclusively to initiate the first contact with the men that they are matched with (Mcdonald & Koning, 2019). This has brought Brumble under criticism as it would appear that they are less feminist than Tinder. Tinder allows any of the parties to initiate contact, which gives it more of a plus in addressing the gender stereotype idea. Online dating has also provided women with an active role in romantic interactions.
In different surveys conducted, it was also noted that men typically outnumber women in online dating platforms. Though this may also be attributed to the fact that men outnumber women across many IT contexts. Men find online dating to be efficient, even though they find those using the service as desperate (Riaz & Ruhela, 2019). This may also be due to the fact that men mainly are looking for short term relationships with little commitment as opposed to women who claim they are after non-romantic reasons such as friendship or possible romantic partner, which often means a long-term relationship. When using the Tinder app, users often swipe either left or right to like a person that they have been matched with based on appearance. Men typically consider appearance in their pursuit of online pairing while women are after stability in anticipation of a life long partner (Riaz & Ruhela, 2019). Women prioritize financial properties and other aspects over appearance. Women view attractive men as being less dependable and are prone to cheating. However, women still do not mind an attractive man, but will still be incentivized by his assets. This has not done so much to get rid of gender stereotypes. This form has led to pressure in trying to fulfill these shoes. Men and women often mislead each other based on the information they provide on online dating apps such as Tinder and Brumble. For instance, the men may offer information about their occupation, lifestyle that is untrue to impress potential female users (Riaz & Ruhela, 2019). Similarly, women may post pictures that are digitally enhanced while making their profiles.
When it comes to age, men typically prefer younger women or of similar age to them. Opposite from the men, women users prefers older male candidates. Women start with an older preference, which only broadens as they get older. It is, however, clear from researches that older women prefer younger men. This form of preference can still be attributed to socioeconomic status (Buxmann, Krasnova, Baumann, Abramova, 2016). Women’s choice to financially stable men makes most of their pairing towards more older men users. For men, a younger youthful look is an attribute to physical attractiveness. If you include the fact that fertility in women gets lower with age, it only fuels the age preference in men (Buxmann, Krasnova, Baumann, Abramova, 2016). Generally, women are more lenient on their partners’ age so long as they are dependable and financially stable
Further studies on online dating are expected to provide additional information on the preferences of both men and women in platforms such as Tinder and Brumble to improve the experience. This is because of the increasing reliance on dating apps as being a standard way of developing a romantic story. Though there is a lot of information provided from interactions between online uses in regards to gender such as both genders, preference to physical attributes, socio-economic status, age etc. the emergence of feminist online dating apps that give women the upper hand in initiating relationships in order to create a safer environment for women. This form gives women a sense of psychological empowerment while searching for friendship or a romantic partner. Understanding of behavioral patterns such as observing men is more active in online dating than women, less selective, motivated by physical appearance while women are generally less motivated by physical attributes rather than economic status, and long-term relationships help to develop profile options better. The addition of filters to enhance photos used has created a better experience not only for women but occasionally for male users.
References
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Tanner, M., & Tabo, P. Q. (2018). Ladies First: The Influence of Mobile Dating Applications on the Psychological Empowerment of Female Users. InformingSciJ, 21, 289-317.
Ruhela, S., & Riaz, S. Relationships through the Lens of Dating Applications: A Social-Imaging and Gender Based Study.
Finkel, E. J., Eastwick, P. W., Karney, B. R., Reis, H. T., & Sprecher, S. (2012). Online dating: A critical analysis from the perspective of psychological science. Psychological Science in the Public interest, 13(1), 3-66.
Abramova, O., Baumann, A., Krasnova, H., & Buxmann, P. (2016, January). Gender differences in online dating: what do we know so far? A systematic literature review. In 2016 49th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) (pp. 3858-3867). IEEE.
Mcdonald, Joshua, and Anniek de Koning. “Tinder vs. Bumble: Can You Afford Falling in Love?” Masters of Media, 24 Oct. 2019, mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/blog/2019/10/24/tinder-vs-bumble-can-you-afford-falling-in-love/.