Is Tinder changing the way we think?
Is TINDER changing the way we think? Experts warn 'binary
thinking' teaches people to over simplify and become disconnected
• 'Tinderization' is a way of over-simplifying, leading
to yes or no decisions
• Phenomoenon allows people to passively avoid emotional
entanglement
• Concept applies to more than just Tinder, and leads to
robotic behaviour
By CHEYENNE MACDONALD FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 14:31 EST, 15 January 2016 | UPDATED: 18:45
EST, 15 January 2016
As technology merges with social decision making, users
are growing increasingly disconnected, tending more towards 'either/or,'
options than embracing complexity.
The phenomenon is becoming known as 'Tinderization.' In
this concept, which is not limited solely to Tinder use, people are urged
toward being more 'chill.'
By creating too many options to make decisions more
intricate than a 'yes' or 'no,' human behaviour ultimately becomes robotic.
WHAT IS 'TINDERIZATION'?
The authors compare the mindset to a large-scale version
of 'zoning out.'
With Tinder, swiping through potential suitors allows
people to make choices quickly—so quickly that it becomes like a game.
By swiping right time after time, users can pick so many
options that they don't actually have to make a choice, the authors explain.
This applies to all networks, as people continue to push
aside human connection, and opt toward binary sorting techniques.
When a situation doesn't go well, a person can easily
avoid confrontation and never just follow up.
The phenomenon is leading toward a more detached society,
which feels less emotionally accountable in virtual connections.
In an essay for The New Inquiry called Tinderization of
Feeling, Alicia Eler and Eve Peyser write that Tinderization is a way for people,
largely millennials, to make fast decisions by simplifying situations into a
simpler 'yes/no' format.
Regular decisions, like choosing a show to watch, or a
restaurant to eat at, have become even more difficult with the inundation of
immediately available networks at your fingertips.
With Tinder, swiping through potential suitors allows
people to make choices quickly—so quickly that it becomes like a game.
By swiping right time after time, users can pick so many
options that they don't actually have to make a choice, the authors explain.
This applies to all networks, as people continue to push
aside human connection, and opt toward binary sorting techniques.
'Tinder is more than a dating app,' Eler and Peyser
write, 'it is a metaphor for speeding up and mechanizing decision-making,
turning us into binary creatures who can bypass underlying questions and
emotions and instead of with whatever feels really good in the moment.'
The authors compare this mindset to a large-scale version
of 'zoning out.'
When a situation doesn't go well, a person can easily
avoid confrontation and just never follow up.
'To remain chill is to ignore without intention, not
because you chose to but because you don't have the emotional energy to reply
to everyone,' the authors write.
'The more we Tind, the seemingly chiller we become. But
really we are just overwhelmed with faces behind screens, with serial
objectification and passive evasion.'
The authors argue that these networks don't have to lead
to a disconnected society, but users must be willing to engage in 'emotional
intricacies,' to fight it.
By including other people in the processes and having
intricate conversations, emotional boundaries can be set, allowing a person to
reconnect with complex feelings.
Even Tinder, they write, doesn't have to lead to
Tinderization.
Instead, the dating app and other services like it can be
used to verify a connection by facilitating the first dates of people who share
overlapping social circles, and already know of each other.
Then, a person is held emotionally accountable in a different
way.
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