Core concepts: selfies, "layers of electronic intimacy", "Sexting as Media Production", "paradox of choice"

Expressions of and searches for love and sexuality pervade all corners of the web today, particularly the world of mobile applications. If there is one area of life that we can say has been deeply changed by technology today, it is this conflagration of love, sex, loneliness, and marketing - which we will simply call online dating.

Sexting and selfies

As always, history reveals that the changes enacted through technology on online dating have been gradual; that there is a great deal of convergence between how we have loved and lusted in the past and how we do so now. For example, this video by the Atlantic Monthly provides examples of sexual texting or "sexting" style messages exchanged among lovers and lusters in generations and centuries past.

Selfies are a new genre of photography, and art, according to Jerry Saltz in this article for New York Magazine. They also may signify a new sense of self-reflection that is redefining romance and sexuality. For example, images of nude women have been circulated on every type of medium used in history. But in the age of selfies and sexting, women are now the most frequent photographers of the female form; the sexualizing gaze is directed at the self, and then shared with the world. In her article entitled Sexting as Media Production, Amy Hasinoff promotes the idea that sexting can be empowering for young women. She also unveils the complications when laws designed to punish people for circulating pornographic images and abusing children are applied to young people who are expressing sexuality over phones and online. As seen in the erotic photos just above, the online circulation of sexualized images is an old practice with new players.

Connecting to the network and infiltrating the tribe

A significant part of human social life is organized around who we form lasting romantic relationships with. The online world, once idealized as a place of anonymity and separation from offline life, now has networks devoted to replicating offline life online, and building networks of relationships. These interconnected relationships are what experts really mean when we talk about social networks, which sociologists began studying decades before online social networking sites existed. We can also call them tribes, which are socially connected groups of smaller, more intimately connected groups.

Dating is important. It offers the rare invitation for someone unconnected with one's tribe or social network to enter, at least temporarily. Dating can be the preface to intimate relationship, and potential reproduction and extension of a family. So this invitation can't be extended to just anyone; we have to vet people before they can enter the inner sanctums of our tribes, and biases can play significant roles in that vetting. The discomfort of this process for a new partner of a different race is captured in two films about a young black man coming to the home of the family of his white girlfriend, 1967's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and a horrific riff on that film made fifty years later, Get Out. Yet even when dating does not end in horrific consequences, it is still a high-stakes activity.

But is dating always so serious? What if the connection is intended, by one or more of those involved, to be just about sex? What if one's "dating" is only seeking infiltration into someone's bedroom or even some public place for quick sexual encounters? Well, that is part of human history as well. And it still has significant emotional and social consequences.

The sequence for seeking someone special

In a 2014 article entitled From Facebook to Cell Calls, Yang and coauthors found that college students progressed through "layers of electronic intimacy" - different media chosen as benchmarks in the progression of a romantic relationship. When they were interested in someone, they began by connecting with a "crush" through Facebook, which allowed the "crush" to see who their admirer's friends were and how the admirer looked, communicated, and behaved. The next layer was instant messaging - direct communication, but not as direct as use of one's "digits" or cellular connection. After instant messaging, they moved to the more intimate sanctum of text messaging. The final step was face-to-face meeting. Overall this sequence of media they used followed a pattern: They began by performing in front of and viewing one another's social networks or tribes, they then moved in to more direct one-on-one communication before meeting in person.

Data in the above study was likely collected in 2011 or 2012. So what might people like the participants in Yang and coauthors' study be doing to find romance now, five years later? College students today may be be using some different platforms in their pursuit of new connections than the students in Yang et al's study; Instagram is likely high on the list.

However, it is also likely that at least some of the pursuit of romantic interests that happened through different media in the past is now consolidating in online dating sites. ​The Pew Research Center published a report in 2016 about the growing number of Americans who have used online dating. They found that online dating usage by those aged 18-24 has nearly tripled since 2013 and usage by those aged 55-64 has doubled; other age groups’ use has increased as well.

Do dating apps do what we did before?

Online dating apps afford the presentation of ourselves to prospective friends, partners, mates, and hookups. On these apps, users' imagery and self-description tend to be idealized, sometimes to the point of deception. Apps such as settleforlove.com have been developed around the desire for more honesty in online dating, but their market share has not been spectacular. It seems upfront honesty is not the best way to gather a public of potential lovers.

Do dating apps also follow the sequence found in Yang and coauthors' study, moving from social and tribal to direct connection? That depends. Some apps leave out learning about someone's social connections, instead using complex algorithmic calculations of who would be a good match - even if scientific evidence does not support that these algorithms work. Others just speed through the sequence by facilitating immediate direct connection, and in some cases, quick sex. Some use the language of sociality like "tribe" and some connect you to matches through your social networks.

But we humans and our cultural norms still determine a great deal of how dating apps are used. Just as bias affects algorithms across the web, bias has been found to tip the scales on dating sites in favor of white men, to the detriment of groups including black women and Asian men. Sites and apps follow our leads as much as we follow theirs. And apps only go so far; dating apps today function more like online shopping than like relationship formation of the past. In the BBC Horizon film How to Find Love Online, the romance-focused anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher says they are better called "Introduction services," with the act of dating and the final vetting before it still conducted in person.

Mobile dating apps

Mobile apps are particularly influential in the world of online dating today. One of the pioneers was Grindr, a gay dating app. Bae, an up and coming site branded "for black singles," was recently acquired by a company aiming to make it global. Her caters to queer women.

And then there is Tinder, the most popular in the US (although not the world) at the time of this writing, which has taken the heterosexual dating world by storm. There are many critiques of Tinder's effect on heterosexual dating however, including studies finding that it favors men's usage norms over women's. Tinder faces strong competition from numerous competitors for the US market, however, including a direct challenge - with a grudge - from a Tinder cofounder's site, Bumble, discussed more below.

The paradox of choice

Some scientists and users are critical of online dating apps because of the wide selection the provide. As Aziz Ansari points out in this podcast episode, and in this article, for some people dating once meant choosing from an extremely small selection of people. He and the podcast host cite studies finding a "paradox of choice," psychologist Barry Schwartz's theory that the more selection we have, the less likely we are to choose something and feel satisfied with our choice - whether it is a partner or a jar of jam. And today? Thanks to these apps, users get exposed to a lot more jam.

For users in big cities, it is possible to swipe almost infinitely through prospects for dating and potential sex. As my friend Mary Franklin Harvin describes it, it gives "an air of disposability" to people. Nancy Jo Sales' Vanity Fair article on Tinder goes further, claiming women have fewer orgasms in the numbers-game exchanges Tinder facilitates - and in these situations with so little intimacy or rapport for feedback, men do not learn the skills to be good lovers.

Many including Sales in the article linked above have charged that Tinder encourages a culture of harassment of women. That may be in part because the culture within the company has been the site of harassment too. Tinder cofounder Whitney Wolfe left Tinder in 2014 after being sexually harassed there, received a settlement, and started Bumble.

But online dating sites, like most technologies, depend on humans to use them and shape their norms. To end with a ray of hope for those who feel they have to use Tinder, artists like Audrey Jones, Matt Starr and Jarrod Allen use Tinder to make art. If nothing else, they remind us that humans can choose to use platforms in new ways - even if using them differently than the crowd can be lonely.

selfies

a 21st century genre of popular art and media production

"layers of electronic intimacy"

a term by Yang et al (2013) to describe how college students chose different media platforms as benchmarks in the progression of a romantic relationship

"Sexting as Media Production"

A 2013 article by Amy Hasinoff promoting the idea that sexting can be empowering for young women, and unveiling the complications that arise when laws designed to punish people for circulating pornographic images and abusing children are applied to young people who are expressing sexuality over phones and online

"paradox of choice"

psychologist Barry Schwartz's theory that the more selection we have, the less likely we are to choose something and feel satisfied with our choice

Did you get all that?

Let's see if we've matched you up with the right concepts.

How does Amy Hasinoff approach sexting in her article linked in this chapter?

• A.) She argues sexting is pornography that should be punished more seriously than current laws allow.
• B.) She argues sexting can be a form of media production by young women, and does not fit the harsh punishments current laws allow.
• C.) She argues sexting is a form of child abuse.
• D.) All of the above
• E.) A and C only

In what order did Yang and coauthors find college students used media to get to know one another?

• A.) Instant Messaging
• B.) Cell phone
• C.) In-person meeting
• D.) A social networking platform

What did Whitney Wolfe experience before founding the online dating app Bumble?

• A.) Sexual harassment by high level executives at Tinder, a company she co-founded
• B.) Suing Tinder because she didn't get any dates
• C.) Suing Tinder because too many users messaged lewd remarks to her
• D.) All of the above
• E.) B and C only

What does the "paradox of choice" say is likely to happen when we are presented with many choices on something we are looking for?

• A.) We will be less satisfied with the choice we make
• B.) We may not choose anything at all
• C.) We will always find something much better than we would have with fewer choices
• D.) All of the above
• E.) A and b only