Exploring How Mobile Dating Apps Can Affect Us Offline
Written by Laurie Carter
This essay explores how mobile technology affects our relationships offline - with ourselves, others and our communities. I consider the ‘real’ and ‘virtual’, how they relate to one another and whether there is now a ’mutual permeation of the virtual and physical world.’ (ref 1) I was curious about the intersection between on and offline and the ‘consequences this has for social formations within the physical world.’ (ref 2) Communication via mobile platforms is today so prominent, do we now have little choice but to engage with our communities online, regardless of potential risks? Also by not engaging with such technologies, do we risk being ostracised from our communities? I was driven to write this piece after a gay friend found himself in a situation that prompted him to leave his online world and stop using the very apps that ‘have become part of the texture of gay life’ (ref 3). I wanted to explore the potential impact mobile technology has on intimacy, and to question whether my friend’s experience would have been different if such technology had not been at the heart of his ordeal. I look at two popular apps, Grindr and Scruff, and explore issues concerning the categorisation of users through app design and user location, the emphasis placed on visual personal representation, and the impact our digital footprint can have in our offline world.
My friend, Ron, was in his thirties when he announced he was gay. He felt he needed to make up for lost time and was soon visiting areas in London popular with the gay community. Ron quickly discovered that, despite some ‘nostalgia for the days before the Net,’ (ref 4) meeting someone for the first time was now rarely done in the flesh. Mobile dating apps were, more often than not, the ‘areas’ that men now initially interacted. As Gruzmacher found in his research exploring how the internet has shaped the identities of Chilean gay men in the last twenty years, (ref 5), mobile dating apps were integral in assuming Ron’s sexual identity. Although for some the internet is seen as ‘a highly eroticised and sexualised space, rather than a useful tool that might help’ (ref 6) people meet one another to form relationships of greater meaning, for Ron, it felt that this was the space he needed to be in to connect with his new community.
As far back as the 1990s, Sherry Turkle has been interviewing people about their lives on and offline, many describing ‘the erosion of boundaries between the real and the virtual as they moved in and out of their lives on the screen.’ (ref 7) Although Turkle believes that people’s sense of self on and offline have become interwoven, she sees a difference in how relationships are formed on and offline. Turkle suggests we can experience companionship online but without the work that is required to maintain a friendship. We use technology ‘for ways to be in relationships and protect ourselves from them at the same time.’ (ref 8) We can connect whenever it suits us and, although this ability to interact with such immediacy and to ‘tune out when we don’t want to connect’ (ref 9) may seem empowering, Turkle asks, are we ‘sacrificing what makes intimacy nourishing: the care and mutuality, and also the difficulties that help us to grow as ethical, relating persons’? (ref 10) If technology, and particularly mobile dating apps, allow us to be who we want, access what we want, whenever we want, is it inevitable that we prioritise ourselves over the care of others in those interactions?
Right here, right now - the role of location and being spoiled for choice
Joel Simkhai, Grindr’s CEO, globally one of the most successful mobile gay dating apps, notes that location was not an important feature of the gay chat rooms where men previously interacted online. Generally their text-based conversations never strayed from the screen, their on and offline selves remaining largely distinct. But, once the second generation iPhone became available, with Global Positioning System functionality built in along with the ability for developers to write native applications, ‘it just became a race to get the app out as quickly as possible.’ (ref 11) Apps such as Grindr and Scruff were then designed with user location at their core, encouraging users to start relationships based on geographic proximity. In Yeo’s research of 74 gay mobile app users in Hong Kong, subjects state that on dating apps ‘everything happens very quickly. You chat with someone for a bit, and then meet up, and then have sex’ (ref 12). It seems these apps have changed the basis on which initial interactions are formed. Conversely, when meeting somebody on a website or forum, generally on desktop, the process takes more time: ‘you may be far from that person. So you chat for a while, and then switch to WhatsApp, and then talk on the phone, but you still have not met up. Since the process is longer, there are more opportunities to get to know each other.’ (ref 13)
Simkhai’s research on Grindr users states that ‘the number one thing people are looking for is friendship,’ (ref 14) yet Grindr’s design language feels aggressive and even secretive - their logo is a blank mask (ref 15). When setting up your profile, a series of dropdown lists instruct you to describe your body type, ethnicity, relationship status and sexual preferences, but none offer free text fields to personalise your responses aside from a very short biography. ‘In order to be connected with others, men have to carefully select the material they wish to share and how they wish to frame it’ (ref 16). Despite the app’s intentions to create a varied ’social stew’ (ref 17), users are instantly categorised, which, Ron says, can lead to people interacting with others with similar beliefs and from similar socio-economic backgrounds. Considering what this means for users of an ethnic minority, Shaka McGlotten describes his own Grindr profile as reflecting ‘a complex set of negotiations in which I ambivalently grappled with the racialization of desire and my own positioning in a hyper-competitive erotic marketplace in which whiteness enjoys preeminence.' (ref 18) There appears a tension between the app’s promise to introduce users to a variety of people and the immediate segmentation and commodification that results from the self-description enforced by character limits and drop down lists. Indeed, McGlotten notes that whilst gay online dating apps are celebrated for the ease with which men can connect in close proximity, they are equally critiqued ‘for narrowing gay sociality to the space of screens in which proximate men are laid out on a grid, available for one’s perusal like an endless row of nearly indistinguishable cereal boxes at the supermarket.’ (ref 19) Artist Tom Penny addresses this very issue in his piece, Tough Guy / Big Red X, in which viewers observed the artist’s mobile phone screen continually swiping through profiles on Grindr, dismissing each as soon as they loaded. ‘Each subject becomes a discarded body preceding an endless series of options as the artist challenges the standardisation of queer identity encouraged by the app's design.’ (ref 20) Penny states that his piece ‘makes a normally private process of judgement public. It aims to make viewers highly conscious of the number of users, faces or bodies they themselves discard or swipe through daily on their own device.’ (ref 21) The piece conjures an image of the offline equivalent: a game show where a participant walks along a line of eager potential partners, dismissively moving on to the next as he/she strolls past.
Here’s my picture - the carefully curated self
On Grindr and Scruff, users will usually choose whether to proceed to an interaction or to make an introduction based on whether they find another profile picture attractive. Indeed, so much weight is put on pictures that without one you may simply be ignored; the acronym NPNC is on many profiles, standing for no picture, no chat. Whilst this may not seem different to finding someone physically appealing before talking to them in person, app users have the ability to heavily curate their appearance before posting it to their profile. A great deal of ‘work [goes into] producing, promoting, and managing one’s profile on a program such as Grindr, a sort of ongoing process of becoming in which affective and other largely intangible forms of work matter a great deal to the erotic excitement that defines the app’s appeal.’ (ref 22). Complementary apps such as Manly and Facetune offer ‘effortless, natural results’ (ref 23) enhancing photos to meet people’s aspirations rather than their physical reality. These apps can cover an image of one’s torso in tattoos or drastically add muscles without a single benchpress. ‘Everything from our age, gender, ethnicity, or height can be drastically altered or subtly tweaked… Analogous changes to our physical bodies are much more difficult (or impossible) to accomplish.’ (ref 24).
The design of these apps places such significance on visual representation that ‘carefully selected and rehearsed readymade examples of who you “really” are’ (ref 25) get stored on users’ devices so they can continually update and keep their profile fresh, in the hope of catching a swiper’s eye. This fixation on getting your profile photo right is despite a recognition by many that the exchange of photographs before conversation ‘hamper[s] the development of quality relationships’ (ref 26). Of course ‘we are trained to present ourselves as the best, fastest, smartest’ in some offline situations as well, e.g. the workplace (ref 27). However, Geert Lovink reflects that ‘we are aware that this is only an artificial, made-up image of ourselves and that our "real" self is different…’ (ref 28). He sees this distinction as critical when seeking intimate relationships. Yet, if as Turkle suggests the boundaries between our on and offline selves are blurred, then dating app users perhaps lose sight of the fact that their profiles are heavily curated versions of themselves. Without that distinction, the app, which is intended to build relationships, ‘all but destroys the desperately sought intimacy.’ (ref 29).
Just the two of us - trust and the illusion of privacy
Profile set and smartphone in hand, my friend Ron began connecting with men almost immediately, often having very intimate conversations about sexual experiences, preferences and recreational drug use within an app’s platform, without ever having physically met who he was talking to. Penny describes how ‘the smartphone is a kind of surrogate object of affection, being the physical device through which affect is sent and received. Smartphones are on our bodies: we touch them all the time, we might even bring them to bed with us.’ (ref 30) A great sense of trust is immediately established between users despite, in some ways, being perfect strangers, and there appears to be little concern about the data, images, conversations and personal details shared, that are stored and owned by the companies behind these apps. James Bridle writes of his piece, Where The F**k was I?, from the Glass Room’s 2017 exhibit in London that ‘digital memory sits somewhere between experience and non-experience; it is also an approximation, it is also a lie.’ (ref 31) His piece is concerned with the fact that between June 2010 to April 2011, ‘anyone with an iPhone unknowingly had their locations mapped and saved in Apple’s databases... Bridle’s publication is a reminder of the permanent memories the devices around us contain and how much information can be extrapolated from them.’ (ref 32). Ron has had many conversations on these apps where he has been encouraged to share great levels of detail, as the common belief is that the more explicit and intimate you are, the greater the quality of interaction you will experience.
In an article from The Journal of Social Psychology, it states that ‘the illusion of personal contact on the internet (particularly in social network websites) may in fact reduce perceptions of risk.’ (ref 33) While people at one level might know that their interactions on mobile platforms are not private as a face-to-face conversation can be, the user experience is so seamless and the imperative to share is so strong, that people can forget the possible consequences. Toronto-based LGBT internet magazine, Daily Xtra, reported a story of a gay Canadian who, whilst travelling for work, was stopped at American immigration. His smartphone was searched and personal messages saved within his Scruff app were read. Upon finding a specific message saying he was ‘“looking for loads”’ (ref 34), the officer accused the man of being a sex worker and he was not allowed to enter the United States. A month later he tried again, equipped with employment proof. He had also wiped his phone of gay apps, his browser history and his messages. He was stopped again, not asked for his phone’s password as it was already on file, and was subsequently sent back to Canada. This time, the act of wiping his phone was seen as suspicious. ‘An important conceptual issue regarding trust and online privacy protection is the question of whom an individual is trusting or mistrusting online.’ (ref 35) Whereas it may feel that a user is connecting solely with an individual, the truth can be far from it. ‘In this curious relational space, even sophisticated users who know that electronic communications can be saved, shared, and show up in court, succumb to its illusion of privacy.’ (ref 36)
Six months ago, Ron connected with someone on Scruff and agreed to meet him at his house that evening to have sex. On his walk home, Ron started receiving messages from men he had never interacted with on Scruff, subtly alluding to things that, he believes, they could only have known if they had been present in the bedroom that he had just left. After receiving multiple messages of this nature, he concluded that the man must have been recording them having sex on his computer, which he had prepared ahead of time, and broadcast live. According to Ron, the fetishisation of watching others engage in sex, often without one of the party’s knowledge, is common. Platforms like the video conferencing solution, Zoom, in combination with a mobile dating app, are widely used in this way. Ron, however, has no proof, and all of the messages that he received on Scruff following the event, were deleted by the senders once read. Both Zoom and the Police have said there is not enough evidence to pursue, and Ron is left wondering whether there is now an explicit digital representation of himself permanently online. Needless to say, Ron is now questioning his relationship to technology and his pursuit of intimacy through it. On a subsequent occasion he asked a man to leave his phone outside of his bedroom before sleeping together, in case he was recording. The man refused, accusing Ron of paranoia before abruptly leaving, their relationship ending. Another time, when a conversation within a dating app became extremely intimate, Ron asked whether he and the man could meet face-to-face to continue their conversation. The man refused and immediately stopped contacting Ron as he found the request and reasoning odd. I can’t help but wonder, if Ron hadn’t been just another ‘cereal box’ (ref 37), and had established more of a relationship with these men before meeting physically, whether he would have been treated in the same way. Ron feels left to choose between risking his own sense of personal safety or taking himself off the very platforms that have enabled him to engage with his community.
Conclusion
In this essay, I have highlighted some of the complexities between a person’s experience of a mobile dating app and their identify offline. I have explored the role of the app’s design; the problems of foregrounding images of users to initiate connections, the illusion of privacy that many perceive and the, perhaps, unhealthy speed at which physical encounters can occur due to location-based tracking being at the heart of the technology. I have also explored, as Penny’s work highlights and Turkle’s writing warns, that perhaps meeting someone through a medium such as a mobile dating app affords a certain emotional distance that can create a barrier to the intimacy sought. Does the ‘fast tempo of interaction on apps fostered by perpetual connectivity and a heightened sense of immediacy from mutual proximity produc[e] more ephemeral relationships’? (ref 38) For those looking for greater care and intimacy, are there, or indeed can there be, sufficient mobile-based technological alternatives? Speaking to Ron several months after his experience, he describes that, on reflection, he felt a greater sense of loneliness when he was using dating apps, as they could not deliver what he hoped for. He could continuously connect with people, but this never resulted in anything he would consider meaningful. Over the last few months, Ron has not used this technology. He has had far fewer encounters with potential partners, but they have each been slower, more playful, and to his mind, richer. He hasn’t returned to any of his apps yet, but expects to. However, he anticipates that he will treat them differently now, with a healthy cynicism and a view that, despite their convenience, they are not the only way to interact with his community.
Throughout this study, I have scratched the surface of an on and offline community that is not my own and I am acutely aware of some of the problems with this approach. Despite creating app profiles, researching theory and interviewing Ron, I was not able to experience the desired intimacy that I was attempting to understand. However, my friend’s experience and my analysis have left me questioning whether similar findings would be uncovered if the on and offline worlds of other communities were similarly explored. Despite its power, are there other examples where the immediacy and convenience of the smartphone, and the design of the apps within, create barriers to the quality of the relationships we seek?
References
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