Dating apps
500 swipes a day: How addiction to Tinder matches got one man into therapy
Swiping and matching on Tinder and other dating apps triggers feelings of happiness – and therefore poses dangers
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Since he was 18, Ed Turner has been matching one woman after another on dating apps like Tinder. The hunt for the perfect match and the dopamine rush almost destroyed him. Still, he can’t stop completely.
It started in bed. While still half asleep, Ed Turner began dating at the height of his addiction.Swipe apps to the right. Again and again. It doesn’t matter what the women who suggested him on Tinder, Bumble and Co. looked like. Then the waiting began. Onto the match. Here’s to the resulting chats. On the rush of attention. Online dating dominated his life. Even when he actually found a relationship.
“These apps have influenced my entire mood and personality,” the now 27-year-old Brit told “I News.” “If a person didn’t respond or didn’t write in the first place, it destroyed me.” At some point the whole day just consisted of matching women on several dating apps at the same time and writing to them. Even at work he thought about it all the time.
Tinder is like gambling
It is well known that the mechanics behind dating apps can promote addictive behavior. “Tinder is a bit like one of those gambling machines: next time you could win big,” even the health insurance company DAK warns on an information page. Even when you swipe quickly, the body releases the happiness hormone dopamine, and the feeling of happiness increases even further during a match. Variable rewards are called the underlying principle in science. And it is actually used in slot machines too.
Turner experienced the ups and downs firsthand. “I got a total high from getting lots of matches from people I also found attractive,” he remembers. “But then there was always a crash. That just can’t be sustained.”
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Dating for the sake of dating
At some point it was no longer about real dating anyway. Turner swiped right on every woman, regardless of whether he actually found her attractive. Only when there was a match did he even think about it. Turner made up to 500 swipes a day at the peak of his addiction. He chatted with ten women at the same time, meeting one about once a week. “I didn’t even know what I needed anymore. I got to the point where I only asked women out on dates because otherwise they would have broken off the conversation,” he knows today. It was no longer about the women or even a relationship, just about confirmation. “I knew: You have to ask her on a date. At that point I had almost lost interest again.”
Even when he had his only long-term girlfriend to date in 2021, he couldn’t stop during the year-long relationship. Although he stopped using the dating apps at the beginning, he eventually installed them again. Because he continued to think about it every day. “I felt like a bad partner,” he admits. “Even though I never spoke to the women while I was in this relationship, it had an effect. I missed the high.” It was only his therapist who made him aware that the apps themselves were part of the problem and were exacerbating his depression.
Lawsuit against Tinder and Co.
Turner is not alone in this. In the USA, a lawsuit against the business practices of dating app operators was filed for the first time on Valentine’s Day. The plaintiffs argue that it is no coincidence that the apps are addictive. And the operators like Tinder parent company Match would know that exactly. “Match specifically uses functions to influence dopamine supply via game mechanics. This is intended to keep users, like gamblers, in psychological reward loops in order to maximize profits through subscriptions,” the lawsuit states. The plaintiffs argue that the dating portals violated consumer protection laws.
Turner also had several subscriptions to dating apps at times so that he could swipe and chat indefinitely. At its peak, he invested more than 400 euros in services such as Tinder and Bumble within 18 months. Even after his therapy, he took out subscriptions again, most recently paying 70 euros for a three-month Bumble subscription, he confessed to “I News”. But then he let it expire.
The fact that he can’t and doesn’t want to do without the apps entirely is also due to the fact that he now longs for a partnership. Several of his friends have actually managed to build stable relationships through the apps. To achieve this, Turner is now trying his hand at moderation: he only swipes to the right if he really likes the women. And only dates every few months.
Sources: INews, DAK, Statement of Claim, NPR