More Connected Than Ever Before? Online Dating and the Youth Mental Health Crisis

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The internet and online dating apps have changed human interaction. People have an endless conveyer belt of choice, which can lead to unstable and transactional budding romances. Thus, there is a paradox between what should allow for increases in connection, interaction, and hope for lonely young individuals, vs the reality that young individuals are experiencing drastic increases in loneliness through the pervasive influence of technology.¹

It is likely that mental health professionals will care for young individuals who have experiences with online dating. Bumble, a widely used dating app, boasts a rapid increase of registrations in the span of just a few years. A recent article states that Bumble had 12.5 million registered users, a notable increase from previous statistics suggesting around 1 million user registrations at 1-year post founding. Of those registered, the majority are young individuals, with 72% of Bumble users being under the age of 35.² Online dating through mobile apps is currently the most common way to date.³ In this format, daters can go through hundreds of prospects in a sitting, with the ease of a finger swipe that prompts the app to refresh to the next profile in line looking for companionship. When 2 people swipe, or like each other, they then match. If not, the profile, and individual, quietly fade away.

In the era of online dating, ghosting is becoming increasingly common: it is the sudden abandonment from one party in relationships. Ghosting happens without warning, explanation, or communication, leaving the person on the receiving end with no understanding or closure as to why it happened. Ghosting others is easy and convenient to do on online platforms, when the ghoster can unmatch with the press of a button to entertain new and constantly available options. It is an impersonal, dehumanizing aspect of online dating, and it happens often. In fact, 1 in 4 individuals have experienced being ghosted.⁴ Ghosting causes emotional harm and can leave the individual who was ghosted feeling sad, hurt, angry, and disillusioned.⁵ In one study, 44% of respondents agreed that ghosting had long-term impacts on their mental health, including lowered self-esteem, decreased trust in relationships, and increased depression.⁶ Modern social media applications provide an ease of use for ghosters. We can consider other social media platforms such as Snapchat or Instagram, where once interested parties can decide to be uninterested with the click of the ‘block’ button. Contact names and user information can be adjusted by the user in moments, or a person can simply hit the unfollow or block button to permanently remove a user’s ability to see and access their account. We should also consider how ghosting on dating apps differs from how someone would ghost a person in real life, because these instances can also happen, such as waiting for a message on an answering machine, or coming home to a partner packing their belongings. Ghosting has happened to people throughout history in its various forms, but the modern online interfaces provide new avenues for ease and anonymity. The digital online world of dating apps is an effective barrier because it provides a way to avoid the discomfort of ghosting or hurting a person directly. Fleeting, unstable interactions are easy to pull off on dating apps with often little repercussion or social consequence for the ghoster.

Case Study 1

“Jim” is a 19-year-old man who has struggled for months to find a date using Tinder. Despite swiping on many women, he rarely makes any matches, often going days without a response. Constantly seeing other profiles has negatively impacted his self-esteem. He complains to his psychiatrist that he has “nothing to offer” compared with the other men on the app, who are “clearly much better looking, and more successful.” One day, he matches with a woman he is interested in, “Angela,” who is the same age. They meet and go on dates for the next few months. Jim has shown a reduction in his anxiety and depression and is motivated by his romantic partner. Suddenly, after making plans to go on a weekend trip together, Angela stops responding to him.After trying to reach out a few times by messaging and calling, he realizes that he has been ghosted, as if their relationship never existed. He goes to check Angela’s profile on Tinder and sees that she has unmatched him. He is crushed that he was so easily discarded. The massive rejection weighs heavily on him, and his anxiety and depressive symptoms escalate. He begins to use alcohol and cannabis daily to cope with his feelings of worthlessness. He believes that this rejection is proof that he is a nobody and feels this experience has confirmed that “I will never find someone.”

The impacts of ghosting may play a part in the epidemic of loneliness in youth. Individuals who have experienced ghosting report poorer life satisfaction and feeling lonelier.⁷ Poorer life satisfaction may correlate with the rejection experienced by daters, which diminishes self-esteem. The emphasis placed on the physical attributes and immediate visual impression of a profile may increase negative self-image and dissatisfaction.⁸ Around 50% of matches do not respond, so even when a mutual match has formed, there is potential for the rejection through silence that can perpetuate personal feelings of abandonment and loneliness.⁹

Failure to Ensure Physical and Emotional Safety of Users

Online dating poses many challenges for users. While there may be benefits from the anonymity and obscurity people gain from using online platform handles, the risks of online dating can go beyond disappointment. There has been a rise in cybercrime, sexual harassment, and sexual exploitation online, leading to increased psychological distress, trauma, and mental health issues in young individuals.¹⁰

Exploitation is another serious concern in online dating. An example of online sexual exploitation might include being asked to send nude photos or other sensitive information, and the receiver then threatening to display them online unless payments or other favors are made. The use of exploitation within online exchanges is widespread: studies on various forms of image-based sexual exploitation found occurrence rates between 20% and 33%.^11,12 Image-based sexual exploitation also happens more often in youth, with individuals between the ages of 16 to 29 the most likely age group to experience this form of exploitation.^12,13

Moreover, online dating platforms lack background checks,¹⁴ and individuals can create new accounts with new identities and names.¹⁵ While meeting and dating strangers in social contexts such as a bar is not a new concept, and these meet-ups also hold inherent risks, in-person dating holds a more limited scope in how sexual exploitation or violence can be enacted. An online platform holds new dangers and opportunities for perpetrators of sexual violence. The internet can be weaponized through its access to a global audience, increased opportunities for anonymity, and the ability for the perpetrator to hurt their victim from a distance. Thus, sexual harassment and violence may pose unique challenges in the online world. There has been progress in online safety, with dating apps implementing evolving safety features to address safety concerns as they are brought up by users. In 2020, Tinder launched safety improvements such as the Safety Center for accessing resources and reporting misconduct, Noonlight (which allows you to discreetly notify friends or family if you feel unsafe during a date), and a blue check option to verify your account with the goal to reduce anonymous or fake profile activity.¹⁶ However, there is no mandatory tutorial to learn about these safety features, and whether the safety tools are enforced in an effective way is uncertain. According to an article by Burga in Time, due to sexual assaults being severely underreported, certain safety features such as the identity check may not always be effective in confirming the safety of a user, even if they are verified. Safety is not essentially enforced as a responsibility on the user and dating apps’ approach to making their platform safer are to have written safety guidelines that users can choose to read or not read.”¹⁷

Case Study 2

“Jane,” a 22-year-old woman, meets a potential partner, “Greg” using an online dating app. After a few dates, she invites Greg to her apartment. She is sexually assaulted by him. Over the next few days, Greg continues to stalk and harass her online, threatening to assault her again. A week later, he escalates to in-person stalking, leading Jane to experience immense psychological distress. She becomes anxious and fears for her safety, and struggles to leave her home, fearing that Greg will confront her at the grocery store, at her favorite café, or even intercept her on the way to her car.

While stalkers and sexual assault incidents are not exclusive to online dating, the online experience changes how a victim may process incidents. It may also be difficult to employ effective prevention measures on the apps when assaults do happen. Abuse can take various forms online that are not necessarily physical yet still create severe psychological distress for the victim. This could include behaviors such as ghosting, harassment, scamming, or sexual exploitation. What is different about the online dating apps are the ease of access they provide in the form of a large, readily accessible pool of vulnerable people for perpetrators to choose from. Multiple connections can be developed simultaneously, and apps are an easy way to recreate false identities for repeat offenses. As an example, a repeat sexual offender continued to be an active member on the Match app system. His profile was only deleted when an official police file was reported, despite multiple women reporting to Match Group about the sexual assaults prior to his arrest. The app had been aware of the assaults for years and continued to allow him access to dating applications, which became a tool to facilitate his abuse.¹⁸ The open-endedness of the dating app program tailors multiple, endless possible connections to be facilitated between people on a more efficient and greater scale. This also creates opportunities for increases in targeted attacks, and mentally and physically harmful practices at a greater scale.

Conclusions

How can mental health clinicians help their patients who experience mental health distress because of online dating? How can the safety and mental health of young individuals who participate in online dating be approached? What will the impact of an increasing online dating landscape have on young people, in comparison to older populations? Future research directions may consider how negative dating experiences affect different population sets, with consideration to resilience, mental health, and overall satisfaction in dating using apps.

First, the problem of declining mental health and self-esteem in young individuals needs to be addressed. With increasing demands for perfection, and a hundred more options just a swipe away, rejection runs rampant in online dating. This reduces self-esteem and alters perceptions of individuals who fall behind in the competition with many other potential matches in the online dating pool.

In order to support patients and help them stay healthy and resilient, clinicians should consider tailoring their treatments with respect to the new online dating landscape. Learning about online dating and asking patients about their feelings and experiences in online dating can help to understand how these patients may be impacted. Forming strategies to promote healthier social media use, such as maintaining boundaries around when to use dating apps, and when to take a break, can help users to feel more in control of their online dating experience. Taking appropriate precautions and developing realistic expectations when interacting with potential partners online can help patients feel more confident and secure both on and off the dating apps.

Recommendations

Mental health professionals are limited to providing therapeutic support to address the mental health impacts of online dating. However, what can the dating apps do differently to address the source of these problems? An interesting proposition came from Frost et al in the early days of online dating.¹⁹ They studied how online dating apps are designed to display searchable, surface level attributes (such as ethnicity or religion) on profiles, and neglect opportunities for dates to show their more personable attributes (such as humor or agreeableness). They created a virtual date environment which allowed randomized matches the opportunity to get to know one another by having their first date online in a virtual format, through exploring virtual environments together. An addition in the dating app selection process that allows for interested daters to first meet virtually and develop a connection before making the decision to meet in person, may help daters make an informed decision. Dates that include games, verbal discussions, and video sessions can help these individuals feel that they are connecting authentically, and that they are able to show the full dimensions of their personality. Furthermore, this can also help online daters decide if they feel comfortable or safe with their matches before taking the leap of meeting in person.

The producers of dating apps are aware of the dangers of online dating and have put measures in place to combat sexual assault, harassment, and coercion through guidelines, policies, and reporting services for crimes. These policies, while showing support and awareness for many of the harms that can happen in online dating, leave out ghosting as a reportable offense. Could standard reporting of ghosting lead to a decline in this problematic behavior? Would the option for users to provide specific, tailored feedback for their reasons for unmatching, in the form of a letter, survey or box checklist to the app, allow for a degree of closure? Would this provide users with a sense of reclaimed autonomy or control over their experiences by telling their story, and would this be a preferred alternative for them to siting in silent abandonment? Repercussions for this behavior, such as account suspension following multiple complaints of ghosting, should be considered, given the devastating emotional consequences it can create.

Ms Penny is a research assistant at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto, Canada. Dr George is a professor of Psychiatry in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto, and senior scientist at CAMH. He is on the editorial board of Psychiatric Times, and coprincipal editor of Neuropsychopharmacology, the Official Journal of The American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.

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