Game mechanics in online dating

Josh sent me this

@cubicgarden 'How Tinder took me from serial monogamy to casual sex' | Life and style | The Guardian – http://t.co/N8zj1PTrHd

— Josh R (@technicalfault) October 1, 2014

Not quite sure why he sent it my way except to say I’ve had very little success with Tinder myself. I have theories and to be fair the article hints at the same conclusions.

It’s playful. You put in your pictures and add some information if you can be bothered. I started with one line “Single Canadian girl in London”. It’s superficial, based purely on physical attraction, but that’s what I was looking for. You go through what’s there, if you see someone you like, you swipe right. If he swipes you too, it lights up like a game, then asks if you want to keep playing….But Tinder is addictive. You find yourself browsing and swiping and playing on.

On Tinder everything’s disposable, there’s always more, you move on fast.

A game, addictive, disposable… Like a casual game? Candy crush, angry birds, cut the rope anybody?  Somewhere on my blog I wrote about how the application affects the mindset of the user. Sure Sherry Turkle talks about this too.

Funny enough Sarah a while ago sent me a post about Tinder from Buzzfeed.

@cubicgarden “@MarcelChastain: "How I Rebuilt Tinder & Discovered The Shameful Secret Of Attraction" http://t.co/mBHGcmuNri”

— Brombles Brombleton (@oh_yeah_sarah) September 14, 2014

Once again, the application has an effect on the user behavior. Tinder is simply too game like. I mean I would contest that most social dating sites are using game mechanics across their sites and apps.

There seems to be much debate about if “Love is a game?” but this simply isn’t sustainable…