We’re excited to share that Tribeca Therapy was recently featured in the BBC News for our expertise in dating and relationship therapy, speaking specifically on frustrations with dating apps. In “Should I Delete Tinder? These Millennials Think So,” writer Maddy Savage discusses the ubiquity of dating apps as the way to meet potential partners and the subsequent dating app fatigue that many users can feel with our Founder and Clinical Director Matt.
Over five years since apps like Tinder, Bumble and OKCupid became popular, dating apps have grown to be, as the article cites, the most common way for prospective partners to meet in the U.S. However, there are lingering concerns about certain downsides of dating apps, from misleading profiles to ghosting to unwanted comments and content. While Savage talks to a range of users about their experiences with dating apps or decisions to try dating IRL, she also includes observations from Matt who speaks from his experiences treating patients who are dating.
Matt explains that the rise of dating apps coincided with the decline in social spaces in which to find potential partners. That, coupled with the rise of apps, means people who refuse to use apps are “dramatically reducing” their odds of meeting someone. As Matt says, “I think that apps are complicated and suck in lots of very legitimate ways. But that’s what’s happening. That is where people are dating.”
Because dating apps have become the predominant means of connection, Matt notices that people tend to ignore potential matches elsewhere because “it’s just not where their brain is.” “When people are going out, going to a party, to a bar, often they are actually not at all thinking about dating, “ he notes.
Matt also emphasizes that leaving dating apps may have to do with a larger ambivalence about relationships altogether since dating has always been challenging. His advice? Make dating on apps more social like sharing profiles with friends or brainstorming ideas about where to go on dates. “One of the paths to which people find their way to misery in this domain is that they are doing it in a much too isolated way,” he says.
Read more of “Should I Delete Tinder? These Millennials Think So” on BBC News
