Having read many forum posts here of the fickle nature of actual “communication” on dating sites … and all the ups and downs people experience … I researched deeper and did a dive into the matrix of the psychology behind online dating apps …. the findings are pretty sobering, disconcerting even and a tad hair raising … so I wanted to spread some awareness …

Here are a few snippets of how dating sites can change your brain and behaviour

1) According to Psychology Today, dating apps become addictive through neurochemical changes in our bodies. Dr. Loren Seiro explains that “Like playing games on your phone it releases endorphins, your body’s endogenous painkiller. This can reduce your anxiety levels, which feels great, or can even spark the feeling of being “high.” (short term, but the crashing afterwards gets worse and worse if there is no satisfactory outcome.)

2) Your brain adapts to the unpredictable reward system and preemptively rewards your anticipated risk.

Essentially, your brain creates a feedback loop — once it gets used to the neurological release, it learns to anticipate and reward your very exposure to the source of that release…. this is known as a dopamine loop. “It’s a sense of reward and seeking out more of the same to get an arousal hit.”

3) Research Shows Dating Stereotypes Still Exist in the Virtual World

Cognitive psychologists from the Universities of Lincoln and Swansea studied 120,000 dating profiles in partnership with dating site eHarmony, and found that the stereotype of men preferring to pursue younger women is still true, but only to a certain extent.

Read a full article here https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/after-service/201805/the-science-behind-what-tinder-is-doing-your-brain