Studies

Swiping could leave you with the love of your life, or crippled confidence. A new survey from the University of North Texas found that singles who used Tinder are more likely to have lower self-esteem and feel unhappy about their looks than people who don’t use dating apps.

“Tinder users reported having lower levels of satisfaction with their faces and bodies and having lower levels of self-worth than the men and women who did not use Tinder,” said Jessica Strübel, PhD, who presented the research at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association.

You've been told not to judge a book by its cover, but let’s face it: online dating is one big library and you have no intention of reading most of the books. You'll barely spare a glance for the description on the dust jacket.

It doesn’t stop at online dating. You’ve judged professional contacts by their headshots on LinkedIn. You’ve judged your partner’s exes by their Instagram pics. You’ve even judged strangers who disagree with you in the comments section by their chosen profile photos.

Pictures on social networks are users’ opportunity to present themselves and to affect how others judge them, but can a picture tell you anything about who a person really is? Are our judgements accurate?

As online dating continues to spread around the world, scholars and scientists continue to investigate the practice. What makes an online dater successful? What makes the perfect profile? Is the perfect profile even achievable? What traits make singles more likely to find love online?

These are the questions asked by a new study published in the National Communication Association's journal Communication Monographs. The study looked at how specific types of content in online dating profiles affected viewers’ impressions and actions, and found that humility is key to online dating success.

“Online daters construct their profiles to attract potential partners and viewers’ assessments are based on the content of dating profiles,” explains the study. “However, little is known about the mechanisms or nature of the associations that connect variations in profile content to outcomes.”

Think that politics and dating don’t mix? In this unprecedented election year where political beliefs and emotions are running high, it turns out that more people than ever aren’t willing to date across party lines.

OkCupid just released a new survey that finds 50% of their users would NOT date someone with opposing political views – an all-time high according to their records.

When they dug a little deeper however, they found that the words people choose in their profiles do indicate political and personal leanings in terms of conservative and liberal mindsets, which might explain this trend.

Have you ever “touched up” one of your Tinder profile photos? Maybe you wanted to look more vibrant, or erase a double chin or receding hairline. If you have, you’re not alone.

Meitu, a popular photo retouching app, surveyed 250 online daters to find out their photo retouching practices, and to see how honestly people are presenting themselves to potential matches. Not surprisingly, they found a considerable portion of the respondents does retouch - 33% of women had retouched their photos and 20% of men had retouched theirs.

While it’s no secret that people optimize photos (look at all the filters on Instagram), it is interesting that this follows a trend in online dating where people have historically posted misleading images of themselves – either by using old photos from 10 years ago at a time when they were thinner or had more hair, or by Photoshopping  their “flaws,” like skin blemishes.

Along these lines, the survey found that 47 percent of men and 27 percent of women have encountered a first date who looked nothing like their profile image, feeding into the stereotype that many people lie about themselves to seem more attractive.

But what does it mean when someone admits to photo retouching? Is there a difference in perception between online daters who do a few touch-ups to enhance their features, compared to severely altering their images? Turns out, there is a difference.

Most survey respondents who admitted to photo retouching did only slight tweaks, such as blemish removal (44 percent of women and 28 percent of men), teeth whitening (18 percent women, 16 percent men), or lightening and darkening of skin tone (28 percent women, 20% men). For all categories, women seemed to do more tweaking in general than men. But the vast majority of both women and men said that some light retouching is fine with them (71 percent of women and 65 percent of men).

Most survey respondents agreed that more severe retouching, such as reshaping faces and body outlines is not okay. Ninety-eight percent of women and 91 percent of men don’t think it’s fine to retouch an image more than slightly.

In summary, avoid surprises on your first date by keeping photo edits simple and natural. Getting rid of that random pimple, adding a little color to your pre-summer skin, or brightening your smile is all good. But avoid anything that’s going to make you look like a different you!

Meitu surveyed men and women between the ages of 18-34 who had used online dating sites or mobile dating apps. 

Many online daters don’t really think about the time or day they login to their accounts to see their new matches. Because we have our phones on us all the time, we tend to check whenever we have the chance.

But a new study has come out from dating website eHarmony, which found that 2:00pm on Tuesday afternoons seem to be the best time to find love online.

eHarmony studied more than 800,000 logins to identify the peak hours throughout the week for finding matches and scheduling dates. Not surprisingly, nine of the ten peak times happened on Monday and Tuesday, right after the weekend, and also around lunchtime. (Perhaps this is to help with that “back to work” melancholy we all feel from time to time.)

But at 2:00pm on Tuesdays, eHarmony found that three times as many people log in than any other time of the week. Perhaps after a quick lunch date gone wrong? On the other hand, they found that the fewest people are online Sundays from 8:00pm to 8:30pm, Monday nights from 6:30 to 7:00pm, and strangely, Tuesdays from 7:30pm to 8:00pm. (Maybe that’s because they are on the dates they set up earlier in the afternoon? Or maybe many people are bored at work during the day, but prefer to watch Netflix at night rather than asking people out.)

This study is only based on eHarmony users, however. A similar study was released earlier this year by Nielson, who studied the patterns of online daters in the UK using Tinder and OkCupid. They found that the most people log in to find dates around 9:00pm, in direct contradiction to eHarmony’s users. (This could be because eHarmony’s users aren’t looking for the last-minute hook-up like some Tinder users.)

Previous studies, like those from Match, have indicated the best time of year for online dating is typically between January 1st and Valentine’s Day. Specifically, the best day of the year to snag some online dates is the Sunday evening after New Year’s Eve, around 9:00pm.

Regardless, there is no “right” or “wrong” time to log in to your online dating account. The best strategy is to check in on a regular basis, preferably every day, because people move fast. If you aren’t active, your profile goes inactive, too. Send more messages and try to engage when you can, even when you’re waiting in line at the grocery store.

Making time for online dating has become really easy and accessible, so take advantage.