Dating platforms and social technologies are built around the chase rather than the consummation of intimacy, emotional resonance, or the recognition of social worth. Research on dating app use has shown that the systems rarely deliver enduring outcomes, but rather incentivise continual pursuit, endless swiping, and repetition of cycles of hope and disappointment (Bonilla-Zorita, Griffiths and Kuss, 2020; Castro and Barrada, 2020). The wasted potential here is not incidental; it is the mechanism. The economy of desire becomes inflated, hyper-circulated, and commodified. Fulfilment is neither the design goal nor the profitable outcome. Instead, the platforms optimise for ongoing circulation, for a never-ending cycle in which the desire for connection is continually reignited and just as continually frustrated (Bonilla-Zorita, Griffiths and Kuss, 2023).
When viewed through the study of complex communication systems, none of this is surprising. The path is written in statistical multiplicity and combinatorial complexity: systems generate turbulence as a function of scale, and human social technologies are no different. What is tragic is not the emergence of these patterns, but the blindness of institutions and governments to their predictable consequences. Universities, in particular, should be ashamed of their gatekeeping. By clinging to hollow rubrics and suppressing fresh or unconventional approaches, they actively obstruct our capacity to address urgent problems. Instead of cultivating adaptive insight, they reproduce their own haunted structures, and in doing so leave societies disarmed in the face of crises that could have been foreseen and perhaps mitigated.
References
Bonilla-Zorita, G., Griffiths, M.D. and Kuss, D.J. (2023) ‘Dating app use and wellbeing: An application-based pilot study employing ecological momentary assessment and objective measures of use’, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(9), p. 5631.
Castro, Á. and Barrada, J.R. (2020) ‘Dating apps and their sociodemographic and psychosocial correlates: A systematic review’, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(18), p. 6500.
Bonilla-Zorita, G., Griffiths, M.D. and Kuss, D.J. (2020) ‘Online dating and problematic use: A systematic review’, International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 19, pp. 2245-2278.
Daedelus Kite 