7 ms·

Tinder “Feedback Loop” Forces Men and Women into Extreme Strategies

37 points by galaxyLogic 5y ago

uejfiweun 5y ago
This study seems so useless. For starters, they restricted it to one race. Next: "All the accounts used pictures of ordinary looking people.". Seems rather subjective, no? And finally: "But curiously, the vast proportion of matches came from men, whether for the team’s male or female profiles. 'Even though the male:female ratio in our dataset is roughly even, on average, 86% of all the matches our male profiles receive come from other men,' say Tyson and co." Clearly these people have never used Tinder before. If a man on Tinder is not homosexual, he will not be shown pictures of other men, and will not appear in the pictures of homosexual men. So basically the conclusions they draw are from a scenario that isn't even close to the real world. This is the point where I stopped reading. Sad to see how much Technology Review has degraded in quality.
- KennyBlanken 5y ago
  MIT in general has degraded in quality for decades. I knew an absolute idiot who got a PhD from the Media Lab for putting a motion sensor and servo motor in a toy bear so it waved at you when a coworker wanted to talk to you and coworkers could tell when you were in your office. A fucking PhD. The MIT underwater robotics team - backed by defense contractors giving them access to all the latest and greatest toys - has lost to high school teams making their robots out of tupperware containers and bilge pumps.
  - thebooktocome 5y ago
    This agrees with my professional opinion of a lot of mathematics coming out of MIT, as of late, but I’m kind of afraid to say anything about it publicly. I wonder what happened? Is it because of decadence, or something else?
    - voakbasda 5y ago
      I would guess that once a school becomes "elite", the people that apply begin to aggressively optimize to win the competition to get in. Think weight lifting competitions. Sure, they may be the "strongest", but they border on useless in the real world. And that's being generous.
  - nfw2 5y ago
    Using figurines as avatars for remote workers seems like a pretty cool idea to me
    - treeman79 5y ago
      I would buy that.
  - keypusher 5y ago
    I worked at an MIT research lab for about 2 years after college. Thought I had landed my dream job, turned out to be one of the most disappointing experiences of my life.
  - waste_monk 5y ago
    >a PhD from the Media Lab for putting a motion sensor and servo motor in a toy bear so it waved at you when a coworker wanted to talk to you Part of the reason I declined a PhD scholarship back in my university days was that due to this kind of credential inflation, the value of a doctorate is steadily declining and there are far too few academic jobs to go around - most of the graduates I talked to were essentially forced out into industry, and if you're not specialising in something with real-world utility you've essentially wasted several years of your life while making yourself overqualified for lower-level jobs.
- kar5pt 5y ago
  I'm a straight guy and I see gay men in my tinder lineup from time to time. They change their gender to female to try and turn straight guys.
honkdaddy 5y ago
Somewhat unfortunately, fringe communities online have co-opted a lot of discussion around online dating to be pretty hostile and borderline misogynist, so any analytical discussion around Tinder is steeped in bitterness. As a straight man in NYC who online dates a fair amount (1-2 a week) and does relatively well, I can offer some anecdotal perspective. At the end of the day, the biggest reason for this disparity is that most women find most men unattractive. That statement begs repeating - statistically, women find the _majority_ of men to be less attractive than what they believe to be the "average" man. Look no further than the oft-cited and since-deleted OkCupid post which dug into this in great detail. [1] More contemporarily, women-centric communities like /r/FemaleDatingStrategy will happily just come out and state this as fact. [2] (warning - if you're a man who struggles with self-esteem I wouldn't recommend clicking that link, you're only going to feel worse) The real kicker here has and always been the chart which demonstrates that women rated 80% of men as being less than average attractive. Anyone with other single friends in their 20s and 30s can attest to this; it's pretty common to hear a complaint from a woman like "there wasn't a single cute guy at that bar" or "none of my coworkers are people I'd consider dating." I don't really know what the answer is, you can't tell people what they should or shouldn't like. Telling men to just "be more attractive" doesn't really work, and telling women to "lower your standards" is equally silly. As I've read elsewhere on HN, the future I envision is one where a good chunk of straight men are largely just removed from the dating market. We're already beginning to see that, with 28% of men in 2018 reporting no sexual activity, with that number only likely to rise. [3] The only advice I can give to men in that position, especially ones who don't hit the marks which serve well in OLD (tall, white, and fit) is not to beat yourselves up. Your personality probably isn't the problem, you don't "hate women", and you certainly don't just need to "shower and touch grass"; you're playing a game in which the odds are stacked against you. There are certain immutable traits which our society finds incredibly important in hetero attractiveness, and if you're lacking those traits, it's absolutely no fault of your own. [1] https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/okcupid/yourlooksandyourinbox.html https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/okcupid/yourlooksandyo... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/comments/iu5nuo/why_are_most_men_so_unattractive/ https://www.reddit.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/comments/iu5nu... [3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/29/share-americans-not-having-sex-has-reached-record-high/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/29/share-ame...
commandlinefan 5y ago
Every study on dating app profiles confirms what I suspected back when I was dating in the late 80's/early 90's - women have a much easier time dating than men do, as much as people insist on denying it.
- kazinator 5y ago
  Women do not have an easier time getting what they want out of online dating compared to men. Sure, if we falsely regard everyone's goal as "to go on a date with a live person with a pulse, as soon as possible", then women probably have it easier. They are the ones inundated with offers.
  - moltke 5y ago
    That problem is largely self inflicted though: women are far more picky than men.
  - kar5pt 5y ago
    "Rich people don't have an easier time getting the housing they want than poor people. Sure, if we falsely regard everyone's goal as "have any level of shelter and security, as soon as possible", then rich people probably have it easier."
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
gabrielsroka 5y ago
2016

37 points by galaxyLogic 5y ago

This study seems so useless. For starters, they restricted it to one race. Next: "All the accounts used pictures of ordinary looking people.". Seems rather subjective, no? And finally: "But curiously, the vast proportion of matches came from men, whether for the team’s male or female profiles. 'Even though the male:female ratio in our dataset is roughly even, on average, 86% of all the matches our male profiles receive come from other men,' say Tyson and co." Clearly these people have never used Tinder before. If a man on Tinder is not homosexual, he will not be shown pictures of other men, and will not appear in the pictures of homosexual men. So basically the conclusions they draw are from a scenario that isn't even close to the real world. This is the point where I stopped reading. Sad to see how much Technology Review has degraded in quality.

KennyBlanken 5y ago
MIT in general has degraded in quality for decades. I knew an absolute idiot who got a PhD from the Media Lab for putting a motion sensor and servo motor in a toy bear so it waved at you when a coworker wanted to talk to you and coworkers could tell when you were in your office. A fucking PhD. The MIT underwater robotics team - backed by defense contractors giving them access to all the latest and greatest toys - has lost to high school teams making their robots out of tupperware containers and bilge pumps.
- thebooktocome 5y ago
  This agrees with my professional opinion of a lot of mathematics coming out of MIT, as of late, but I’m kind of afraid to say anything about it publicly. I wonder what happened? Is it because of decadence, or something else?
  - voakbasda 5y ago
    I would guess that once a school becomes "elite", the people that apply begin to aggressively optimize to win the competition to get in. Think weight lifting competitions. Sure, they may be the "strongest", but they border on useless in the real world. And that's being generous.
- nfw2 5y ago
  Using figurines as avatars for remote workers seems like a pretty cool idea to me
  - treeman79 5y ago
    I would buy that.
- keypusher 5y ago
  I worked at an MIT research lab for about 2 years after college. Thought I had landed my dream job, turned out to be one of the most disappointing experiences of my life.
- waste_monk 5y ago
  >a PhD from the Media Lab for putting a motion sensor and servo motor in a toy bear so it waved at you when a coworker wanted to talk to you Part of the reason I declined a PhD scholarship back in my university days was that due to this kind of credential inflation, the value of a doctorate is steadily declining and there are far too few academic jobs to go around - most of the graduates I talked to were essentially forced out into industry, and if you're not specialising in something with real-world utility you've essentially wasted several years of your life while making yourself overqualified for lower-level jobs.
kar5pt 5y ago
I'm a straight guy and I see gay men in my tinder lineup from time to time. They change their gender to female to try and turn straight guys.

honkdaddy 5y ago

Somewhat unfortunately, fringe communities online have co-opted a lot of discussion around online dating to be pretty hostile and borderline misogynist, so any analytical discussion around Tinder is steeped in bitterness. As a straight man in NYC who online dates a fair amount (1-2 a week) and does relatively well, I can offer some anecdotal perspective. At the end of the day, the biggest reason for this disparity is that most women find most men unattractive. That statement begs repeating - statistically, women find the _majority_ of men to be less attractive than what they believe to be the "average" man. Look no further than the oft-cited and since-deleted OkCupid post which dug into this in great detail. [1] More contemporarily, women-centric communities like /r/FemaleDatingStrategy will happily just come out and state this as fact. [2] (warning - if you're a man who struggles with self-esteem I wouldn't recommend clicking that link, you're only going to feel worse) The real kicker here has and always been the chart which demonstrates that women rated 80% of men as being less than average attractive. Anyone with other single friends in their 20s and 30s can attest to this; it's pretty common to hear a complaint from a woman like "there wasn't a single cute guy at that bar" or "none of my coworkers are people I'd consider dating." I don't really know what the answer is, you can't tell people what they should or shouldn't like. Telling men to just "be more attractive" doesn't really work, and telling women to "lower your standards" is equally silly. As I've read elsewhere on HN, the future I envision is one where a good chunk of straight men are largely just removed from the dating market. We're already beginning to see that, with 28% of men in 2018 reporting no sexual activity, with that number only likely to rise. [3] The only advice I can give to men in that position, especially ones who don't hit the marks which serve well in OLD (tall, white, and fit) is not to beat yourselves up. Your personality probably isn't the problem, you don't "hate women", and you certainly don't just need to "shower and touch grass"; you're playing a game in which the odds are stacked against you. There are certain immutable traits which our society finds incredibly important in hetero attractiveness, and if you're lacking those traits, it's absolutely no fault of your own. [1] https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/okcupid/yourlooksandyourinbox.html https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/okcupid/yourlooksandyo... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/comments/iu5nuo/why_are_most_men_so_unattractive/ https://www.reddit.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/comments/iu5nu... [3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/29/share-americans-not-having-sex-has-reached-record-high/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/29/share-ame...

commandlinefan 5y ago

Every study on dating app profiles confirms what I suspected back when I was dating in the late 80's/early 90's - women have a much easier time dating than men do, as much as people insist on denying it.

kazinator 5y ago
Women do not have an easier time getting what they want out of online dating compared to men. Sure, if we falsely regard everyone's goal as "to go on a date with a live person with a pulse, as soon as possible", then women probably have it easier. They are the ones inundated with offers.
- moltke 5y ago
  That problem is largely self inflicted though: women are far more picky than men.
- kar5pt 5y ago
  "Rich people don't have an easier time getting the housing they want than poor people. Sure, if we falsely regard everyone's goal as "have any level of shelter and security, as soon as possible", then rich people probably have it easier."
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

gabrielsroka 5y ago

2016