CHOICE + SOCIAL REWARD = DISENGAGEMENT?

I would like to preface this piece by saying I’m still completely fascinated by online dating platforms as social public squares, though I am no longer an active user of any platform or application. In addition, I still view sites like Match.com and apps like Tinder as channels where real, honest, and sustainable interpersonal relationships can develop. In fact, as a Public Relations graduate student focusing on reputation management, I dedicated my Masters Thesis to understanding how the development of interpersonal relationships online can affect the reputation of the online dating site. You can read that here on Academia.edu, though it’s admittedly not that great. It’s safe to say — I remain a supporter. Unfortunately, online dating is no longer for me.

Novelty

My first experience in online dating was innocent enough. Driven by curiosity and the unabated vigor of my early 20’s, I ventured into the digital dating social hemisphere by creating an account on Plenty of Fish. In the beginning, the novelty of it all had me completely engaged. I found myself meeting new people nearly every week. Awesome, right? Whether or not second, third or tenth dates ensued seemed irrelevant, as I was feeling out this new world and wanted to get a sense of all that was out there. Human beings are undoubtedly crafted to be social animals — and OkCupid! was my Amazon (the jungle, not the website).

Unfortunately, after the novelty wore thin, satisfaction and happiness still felt unattainable. Is this happening for everyone?

I can’t get no…satisfaction

The paradox of choice is a theory of social psychology developed by Barry Schwartz (if you haven’t, please read his book) that examines the psychological effects of seemingly unlimited choice. Instead of choice and options empowering me to examine my values and make better, more informed decisions about dating and relationships, I became crippled, unable to fully act and engage with any one match.

Have you ever just flipped through Netflix, not actually watching anything because you can’t decide on what to watch? The paradox of choice dictates that the endless amount of options is actually making you less engaged with any one program. There is little different when it comes to online dating. Your date is your documentary.

In a piece for Scientific American, Schwartz describes options and opportunity costs.

“The quality of any given option cannot be assessed in isolation from its alternatives. One of the “costs” of making a selection is losing the opportunities that a different option would have afforded. Thus, an opportunity cost of vacationing on the beach in Cape Cod might be missing the fabulous restaurants in the Napa Valley. If we assume that opportunity costs reduce the overall desirability of the most preferred choice, then the more alternatives there are, the deeper our sense of loss will be and the less satisfaction we will derive from our ultimate decision.”

Even when we become engaged and make a choice, no matter what we decide, good or bad, the amount of alternatives available will dictate how we feel about it. From movies to matches, that's a whole lot of opportunity cost to consider.

Paradox of choice, indeed.

Via: http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/bschwar1/Sci.Amer.pdf

One-and-done

Continuing with this thought, choice can make the experience of using online dating platforms difficult, as it may become arduous to develop any real connection or interpersonal relationship that wasn't compared to the totality of options. As the paradox of choice would suggest, one can become paralyzed in decision-making. It can become increasingly difficult to get into the weeds and figure out what is most important without considering the opportunity cost of going that route. It doesn't matter whether a first date included laughs, love or good conversation — because choice is so apparent and accessible, there is always the chance the next date could be better, more rewarding. Speaking of rewards...

A platform void of criticism (for the most part)

Take a look at this passage on dopamine and online social interaction from Norah Casey’s fantastic book “Spark!”

Science tells us that dopamine is the cause of your addiction. The instant gratification we get from texting, tweeting, posting to Facebook and checking out stuff on the internet can lead us into a ‘dopamine loop’ so that we can’t put the phone down or the ignore the ping that tells us a new email or text message has arrived.

This is the dark side of dopamine and it’s good to be aware of it.

Online dating platforms are unique in that most conversations, at least initially, are almost always positive and complimentary. This is wildly different from say, Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube comment threads, where negativity is bursting at the seams. Because the moment of introduction is happening digitally and on a one-to-one basis, nobody REALLY has to speak with anyone they aren’t initially attracted to. Users know this, or at least they think they know it to be fact. So when a conversation starts, automatically there is a perceived level of attraction between the two users. She must like me, she wrote back. He must like me, he laughed at my joke. Small engagements feel like massive wins on Tinder.

"“To the brain, receiving a compliment is as much a social reward as being rewarded money,” - Professor Norihiro Sadato

This constant stream of positivity and compliments further compounds the paradox of choice — the dopamine is flowing like the Nile River for the millions who log on to dating sites every day. Research suggests there is a real social reward to a compliment — one that is similar to receiving cash money.

So is online dating really a social platform with tons of choice, filled with conversations that are always rewarding? Are we making it rain emotional hundreds all of the time?

If so, therein lies the problem. If you’re rewarded for doing something, like the dopamine hit you get from having a successful social interaction via an online dating platform, odds are you’re going to do it again, again, and again. And with a million matches at your fingertips, there are plenty of opportunities to do so. Rewards breed repetition, not interpersonal engagement, when it comes to online dating.

Choice & rewards are good, right?

What I’ve done so far may have appeared to be to try and combine two contradictory social phenomena. Contradictory in that rewards are generally positive, while disengagement from too much choice is negative. Rewards from receiving compliments, increased self-disclosure and positive social interaction feel great, however, increasing dissatisfaction with the interpersonal relationships that provide those rewards is a very real and unintended consequence of choice. Rewards seem fantastic. Dissatisfaction is debilitating. When combined, it’s catastrophic.

The endless choice + a constant stream of compliments — dissipating novelty = complete interpersonal disengagement.

Combining the paradox of choice with increased social rewards, It can become difficult to become engaged - and the constant stream of positive thought can further exacerbate the issue. If we still want to equate this to Netflix, I never watched a bad movie, but never watched the same movie twice. Small victories, larger defeat.

My apologies. I didn’t write this to be a diary entry, but did so to simply draw attention to real, unintended consequences users of these platforms may be experiencing (and shine a light on some pretty sweet theories of social psych).

I would love to hear anyone’s thoughts that have had a similar experience online dating. Feel free to connect with me @ATeixeiraPR

*This piece was written on public transit: excuse all typos, grammatical errors, or long-windedness*

VIEWS ARE MY OWN, OBVIOUSLY.