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Will you support our work and become a Vox Member today? Instead of offering real, human connection with a single swipe, Sales argued that dating apps were simply turning up the dial on hookup culture, and hetero women were once again left to work out the mental gymnastics to convince ourselves that, actually, this was good.
A single mom in her 50s, she reported finding particular success on the apps with young men in their 20s, some of whom turned into exciting trysts, others awkward sexual partners, and one a life-altering heartbreak. In my interview with Sales, we talk about how dating apps make us feel terrible, and discuss some ideas on how to make the internet a more tolerable place for women.
Do you feel vindicated at all that in the six years since, people have been a lot less sympathetic to Big Tech? There has not been a reckoning at all in the way it needs to happen. One of the points you turn to a lot is that dating apps make people feel disposable and that they gamify dating.
What impact does that have on the way we date? But I also think that the app controls our behavior and makes us treat everybody as disposable. People who would normally not have had these thoughts in their heads are doing this because of dating apps. The more you see year-old women or whatever — and [the apps] have fake bots, too — it gets your dopamine spiking.
