Dating apps are pushing forward more popular people — and here’s why

It pays to be popular.

A new study analyzed 3-month data from 240,000 users on an unidentified major dating app in Asia, finding that its algorithm substantially boosted profiles with a high so-called “attractiveness score.”

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Washington believe this to be a bias towards popularity and good looks, seemingly to boost user engagement and therefore profits for the dating platform from subscriptions and in-app purchases.

“Even though dating platforms allow users to connect with others, questions regarding fairness in their recommendation algorithms remain,” study co-author Soo-Haeng Cho said in a statement.

Cho’s team built a test model that found that profile recommendations without bias made substantially less money for the app company and fewer matches for the user.

The research also showed that new apps may not have this bias initially, to gain trust and credibility, but adopt it during a growth period.

“Our work contributes to the research on online matching platforms by studying fairness and bias in recommendation systems and by building a new predictive model to estimate users’ decisions,” said co-author Elina H. Hwang.

“Although we focused on a specific dating platform, our model and analysis can be applied to other matching platforms, where the platform makes recommendations to its users and users have different characteristics.”

Researchers recommend app companies be more transparent with users about their algorithms, as it can be mutually beneficial.

“Our findings suggest that an online dating platform can increase revenue and users’ chances of finding dating partners simultaneously,” explains lead author Musa Eren Celdir.

“These platforms can use our results to understand user behavior and they can use our model to improve their recommendation systems.” 

Dating apps may be falling out of favor anyway, as some singles turn to online platforms like language learning tool Duolingo or even Yelp to meet significant others.

Whichever way you meet a mate, just know that 2024 is expected to be the year of the “gen-blend relationship.”