How infinite options are making it harder, not easier, to find meaningful connection
On paper, dating apps should be the greatest invention in the history of romance. They put thousands of potential partners within reach of your thumb. They remove the awkwardness of cold approaches. They let you filter by age, location, interests, and height — down to the centimetre. We have, for the first time in human history, almost unlimited choice in who we can meet.
And yet. Many people who use dating apps consistently report feeling more anxious, more dissatisfied, and less connected than when they weren't using them at all. What's going on?
In 2004, psychologist Barry Schwartz published "The Paradox of Choice," one of the most cited books in behavioural psychology. His central argument: more choice, past a certain threshold, doesn't increase happiness. It decreases it.
Schwartz demonstrated that when people have too many options, several things happen:
He was writing about jam and jeans. But the application to dating apps is uncomfortably precise.
Dating apps present people as profiles — a few photos, a bio, some statistics. The interface is optimised for rapid assessment: swipe right, swipe left, next, next, next. This creates a very specific psychological mode that is essentially the opposite of what builds genuine attraction and connection.
When people are reduced to swipeable objects, something subtly damaging happens to how we relate to them: we start treating potential partners as items in a catalogue rather than complex human beings. Research by Jeanna Lieu and colleagues found that heavy app users showed lower satisfaction with potential partners overall — not because the partners were worse, but because the mode of engagement had shifted how they evaluated them.
The apps aren't entirely to blame for this. The commodification dynamic is a structural feature of profile-based matching, and it's very hard to avoid once you're inside that paradigm.
Dating apps are businesses, and their business model is based on engagement — keeping you on the platform as long as possible. This creates a set of incentives that aren't aligned with you finding a satisfying relationship and getting off the app.
Variable reward schedules — the same mechanism that makes slot machines addictive — are baked into the swipe interface. You never know when the next match will arrive, which keeps you coming back. The notification that someone liked you delivers a small dopamine hit. The app is designed, at a neurological level, to keep you engaged.
This means the apps are optimised for your continued use, not your romantic success. Worth keeping in mind.
One of the most insidious effects of infinite choice in dating is what researchers call the "romantic maximising" tendency — the belief that because there are so many options, you should keep looking until you find the perfect one.
This plays out in real, measurable ways. Studies of online dating behaviour show that people are significantly more likely to ghost, to avoid commitment, and to continue swiping even when they've matched with someone genuinely compatible — because the app creates the persistent feeling that someone better might be one swipe away.
The cruel twist is that this feeling doesn't go away the more options you have. It intensifies. The more choices you've seen, the more you feel you might be missing the best one.
Or at least, not necessarily. Dating apps, used intentionally, can be a genuinely useful tool for meeting people you wouldn't otherwise encounter. The issue isn't the technology itself — it's the psychological mode the technology encourages.
A few approaches that research and experience support:
Rather than swiping endlessly, decide in advance that you'll pursue a conversation meaningfully with anyone who clears a reasonable bar of interest. Treat matches as people, not possibilities to defer. The goal is connection, not curation.
The longer a connection stays on the app, the more it degrades into text-based performance. Research on online dating consistently shows that the app conversation is a poor predictor of real-world chemistry. Move to a phone call or in-person meeting as soon as it feels natural — ideally within a week of matching.
When you find yourself staying on the apps even when you've matched with someone genuinely interesting, notice that. It's not rational optimisation — it's the paradox of choice in action. Choosing is not losing. Committing attention to one person doesn't mean you've missed out on everyone else.
The research on app fatigue is real. Periodic breaks from the apps — a week, a month — consistently help people recalibrate their expectations, reduce the commodification mindset, and return with more genuine engagement. This isn't defeat. It's maintenance.
Here's the paradox inside the paradox: in a world of apparently unlimited romantic options, the genuinely rare thing is a person who shows up with real presence, genuine curiosity, and the willingness to pay actual attention. The apps have created a culture of infinite browsing and shallow engagement. Being someone who bucks that trend — who treats people as people, who listens, who follows through — is not just ethical. In the current landscape, it's genuinely distinctive.
The apps gave us access. What was always valuable was genuine attention. Those are not the same thing.
The Love Guide's Online Dating Mastery chapter covers the full picture of app-based dating — from profile psychology to conversation strategy to moving off the app effectively.
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