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Why do people believe in conspiracy theories?
Are we genetically inclined for superstition or just fearful of the truth?
10 July, 2020
- From secret societies to faked moon landings, one thing that humanity seems to have an endless supply of is conspiracy theories. In this compilation, physicist Michio Kaku, science communicator Bill Nye, psychologist Sarah Rose Cavanagh, skeptic Michael Shermer, and actor and playwright John Cameron Mitchell consider the nature of truth and why some groups believe the things they do.
- "I think there's a gene for superstition, a gene for hearsay, a gene for magic, a gene for magical thinking," argues Kaku. The theoretical physicist says that science goes against "natural thinking," and that the superstition gene persists because, one out of ten times, it actually worked and saved us.
- Other theories shared include the idea of cognitive dissonance, the dangerous power of fear to inhibit critical thinking, and Hollywood's romanticization of conspiracies. Because conspiracy theories are so diverse and multifaceted, combating them has not been an easy task for science.
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20 June, 2020
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Ancient Greeks devised a way to fight disinformation
Sophists used rhetoric and debate to arrive at practical truths.
16 June, 2020
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
- Sophists were more interested in arriving at practical truths through rhetoric than an absolute Truth (Sophia).
- Their techniques were heavily criticized by Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates.
- Asha Rangappa and Jennifer Mercieca write that Sophist techniques are particularly useful for recognizing and fighting disinformation.
<p>Octavian had a bone to pick with Mark Antony. The latter claimed the Eastern Roman Empire as he moved in with his lover, Cleopatra. Octavian wasn't having it. He read Antony's official will and testament on the Senate floor in Rome. The document described how Antony was planning on leaving everything to his cunning Egyptian mistress and their children, an idea poking at the many fears and biases Romans held of powerful women. Being a foreigner didn't help Cleopatra. Antony was made out to be a traitor.</p><p>The problem? The document was <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41657427?seq=1" target="_blank">possibly fake</a>. </p><p>Whether or not it was actually fake will likely never be known. Octavian's propaganda mission is certainly true, however. He even sketched anti-Antony slogans into coins to denounce his rival. Only the fate of the Roman Empire hinged on their battle. </p><p>Disinformation is nothing new. In 1835,<em> </em>the New York Sun <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-great-moon-hoax" target="_blank">published</a> a half-dozen articles about the discovery of life on the moon. The <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/infamous-war-worlds-radio-broadcast-was-magnificent-fluke-180955180/" target="_blank">radio broadcast</a> of H.G. Wells's "The War of the Worlds" will not be forgotten anytime soon. Nazi propaganda was so effective that a small percentage of people today believe the <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/holocaust-denial" target="_blank">Holocaust never happened</a>. People <a href="https://bigthink.com/coronavirus/the-plandemic" target="_self">even believe</a> vaccines cause autism. </p><p>A convergence of forces produced the dizzying array of propaganda and disinformation in our world today: political manipulation; willful ignorance; social media; anti-intellectualism; scientific ignorance; YouTube. The question is not whether or not disinformation will always exist—it will—the question is how to fight it. For that, we should consider Sophism. </p><p>That's the suggestion of Yale University lecturer and CNN analyst Asha Rangappa and American political rhetoric historian Jennifer Mercieca. While <a href="https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2020/06/07/fake-news-disinformation-propoganda-truth-rhetoric-twitter-president-trump-ancient-greek-philosophers-socrates-plato-truth/ideas/essay/?fbclid=IwAR2Zybw23197bktmspHrjpa_GGWqTk89VsakjXv_Qs-APjU0F2z7_4X58So" target="_blank">they note</a> Plato's skepticism of Sophistry, they believe "clever rhetorical tricks" used by Sophists were necessary for a democracy to function. </p>
The Sophists (A History of Western Thought 8)
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4ead64a2750164c4c913f5c772410d04"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2BkhnoQHxhs?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>Initially, Sophists secured wealthy clients. In exchange for payment, they taught education and rhetoric, as well as music and other arts. Philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Xenophon were not fans; they believed Sophistry to be a lowly endeavor designed to sound deep. Socrates sang the praises of Truth (<em>Sophia</em>) alone; his student, Plato, thought Sophist rhetoric manipulated audiences. Sophistry could never lead to <em>Sophia</em>. </p><p>Mercieca and Rangappa believe Plato's <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Plato/Dialectic" target="_blank">dialectic</a> was not sufficient to resolve political decisions, however. Socrates's insistence on Truth is debatable, as decades of neuroscience research on <a href="https://bigthink.com/mind-brain/media-memory" target="_self">memory</a> and perception now tell us. Arriving at one Truth on a planet of nearly eight billion people is impossible; we aren't designed to handle such volumes of data. Even 2,500 years ago, the Sophists strove for <em>Phronesis</em>, or practical truth. They knew that nuance matters. </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Sophists taught the skill necessary for the practice of democracy—how to reach consensus about the truth. They taught people how to create arguments, to persuade audiences to believe their side, and to solve thorny political problems."</p><p>Mercieca, a professor, and Rangappa, a lawyer, argue that their professions are more like sophistry than philosophy. Whereas sophistry is usually portrayed as disingenuous, it accurately reflects the shared reality we experience in society. </p><p>We shouldn't get caught up in the current usage of sophistry. Words change meaning over time: the Hindu <em>svastik</em>, "auspicious," was co-opted by the Nazis; mythology, with an etymological root meaning "legend" or "story," became synonymous with myth, a falsity. Mythologies are the foundations of cultures, not fabrications. </p><p>Employed correctly, sophistry presents an argument that builds into a practical truth, not the Ultimate Truth. In this sense, Sophists and Buddhists share common ground in their love of debates. Monks have a long tradition of <a href="https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195393521/obo-9780195393521-0024.xml" target="_blank">critical inquiry</a> often accentuated with hand claps or loud syllables. A handclap (or for that matter, a koan) doesn't sound like a path to truth, yet in the right circumstance it reveals profound meaning. Not all learning is logical. </p><p>Debates are essential for democracy. Sadly, social media platforms are designed more for unfriending and trolling than introspection and dialogue. Screens are poor replacements for pantomimes. You read text in your voice instead of the writer's, skewing your understanding of their argument. Lack of intimate contact instigates retreat. You believe the fight is over when the bell hasn't even signaled round one. </p><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzM5ODU4NC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTU5NzM5NjU4M30.31nuOXpodDoJubIwuwWMV9DwGMt57j9j-KuZ3v3UUt0/img.jpg?width=1245&coordinates=0%2C52%2C0%2C53&height=700" id="6f8a8" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="312d6bf37291dfcc19947fe8176d1de5" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Tourists between two large sculptures" />
Tourists take pictures in front of the Athens Academy adorned with sculputures depicting ancient greek philosophers , Plato (L) and Sokrates (R) on June 10, 2016.
Photo: Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP via Getty Images
<p>Disinformation is especially insidious in the digital age. Social media platforms allow for the quick spread of conspiracy theories. A particularly sophomoric form of persuasion is currently practiced by wellness influencers, who claim to be "just asking questions" while sharing anti-vaxx and anti-5G rhetoric. They then pretend to "not take sides." The problem, as Merciera and Rangappa allude to in the following sentiment, is that propaganda disguised as philosophy promotes an mindset made infamous by George Bush the younger: "You're either with us or against us."</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Propaganda and disinformation are persuasion without consent: In fact, by offering new versions of "facts," their authors try to hide that they're persuading us at all. These forms of communication provide a conclusion based on manipulation rather than reason. Propaganda and disinformation create a realm where disbelief is disloyalty, rather than a shared attempt to search for truth."</p><p>Propaganda is compliance, they continue, the preferred vehicle for authoritarians. (Likewise, Plato wasn't a big fan of democracy; he didn't think everyone could access Truth.) Bringing it home to today, the authors cite Twitter fact-checking Trump: an old democratic method, yet one sadly ill-equipped to handle Truth when anything that questions the king is taking a "side." This trend of being "all in" for charismatic figures leaves us on shaky ground. It's how cults form. </p><p>A healthy democracy, they conclude, should promote curiosity and debate, tactics more aligned with Sophism than the search for an absolute yet ever-elusive Truth. </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Accusations—rather than argument—and compliance—rather than persuasion—are incompatible with a democratic dialogue. The ancient Greeks rejected unquestioned propaganda and disinformation as well outside of democratic norms. So should we."</p><p>America isn't healthy. Our modern Octavian does far more damage than print slogans on coins. This administration has helped foment social conditions that reward vitriol over curiosity. Until a mechanism for questioning propaganda is invented—be it technologically or, more likely, rebooting the operating systems nature has endowed us with—constructive debate will always seem like ancient history. </p><p>--</p><p><em>Stay in touch with Derek on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/derekberes" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DerekBeresdotcom" target="_blank">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://derekberes.substack.com/" target="_blank">Substack</a>. His next book is</em> "<em>Hero's Dose: The Case For Psychedelics in Ritual and Therapy."</em></p>
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Yes, websites really are starting to look more similar
Was the hamburger menu always so ubiquitous?
29 May, 2020
David McNew/Getty Images
Over the past few years, articles and blog posts have started to ask some version of the same question: “Why are all websites starting to look the same?"
<p><a href="http://www.novolume.co.uk/blog/all-websites-look-the-same/" target="_blank">These posts</a> usually point out some common design elements, from large images with superimposed text, to <a href="https://uxplanet.org/the-ultimate-guide-to-the-hamburger-menu-and-its-alternatives-e2da8dc7f1db" target="_blank">hamburger menus</a>, which are those three horizontal lines that, when clicked, reveal a list of page options to choose from.</p><p>My colleagues Bardia Doosti, David Crandall, Norman Su and I were studying the <a href="http://vision.soic.indiana.edu/papers/webevolution2017chi.pdf" target="_blank">history of the web</a> when we started to notice these posts cropping up. None of the authors had done any sort of empirical study, though. It was more of a hunch they had.</p><p>We decided to investigate the claim to see if there were any truth to the notion that websites are starting to look the same and, if so, explore why this has been happening. So we ran <a href="http://vision.soic.indiana.edu/web-project/" target="_blank">a series of data mining studies</a> that scrutinized nearly 200,000 images across 10,000 websites.</p>
<h2>How do you even measure similarity?</h2><p>It's virtually impossible to study the entire internet; <a href="https://news.netcraft.com/archives/2020/01/21/january-2020-web-server-survey.html" target="_blank">there are over a billion websites</a>, with many times as many webpages. Since there's no list of them all to choose from, performing a random sample of the internet is off the table. Even if it were possible, most people only see a tiny fraction of those websites regularly, so a random sample may not even capture the internet that most people experience.</p><p>We ended up using the websites of <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/russell_1000index.asp" target="_blank">the Russell 1000</a>, the top U.S. businesses by market capitalization, which we hoped would be representative of trends in mainstream, corporate web design. We also studied two other sets of sites, one with Alexa's 500 most trafficked sites, and another with sites nominated for <a href="https://www.webbyawards.com/" target="_blank">Webby Awards</a>.</p><p>Because we were interested in the visual elements of these websites, as data, we used images of their web pages from <a href="https://archive.org/" target="_blank">the Internet Archive</a>, which regularly preserves websites. And since we wanted to gather quantitative data comparing millions of website pairs, we needed to automate the analysis process.</p><p>To do that, we had to settle on a definition of "similarity" that we could measure automatically. We investigated both specific attributes like color and layout, as well as attributes learned automatically from data using artificial intelligence.</p><p>For the color and layout attributes, we measured how many pixel-by-pixel edits we would have to make to transform the color scheme or page structure of one website into another. For the AI-generated attributes, we trained a machine learning model to classify images based on which website they came from and measure the attributes the model learned. <a href="http://homes.sice.indiana.edu/bdoosti/Papers/webdesign/p329-doosti.pdf" target="_blank">Our previous work</a> indicates that this does a reasonably good job at measuring stylistic similarity, but it's very difficult for humans to understand what attributes the model focused on.</p>
<h2>How has the internet changed?</h2><p>We found that across all three metrics – color, layout and AI-generated attributes – the average differences between websites peaked between 2008 and 2010 and then decreased between 2010 and 2016. Layout differences decreased the most, declining over 30% in that time frame.</p><p><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329454/original/file-20200421-82714-2vu9rd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329454/original/file-20200421-82714-2vu9rd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip"></a></p><p>The graph shows website similarity of companies in the Russell 1000. Lower values mean that the sites studied were more similar, on average. (Sam Goree, Author provided)</p><p>These findings confirm the suspicions of web design bloggers that websites are becoming more similar. After showing this trend, we wanted to study our data to see what kinds of specific changes were causing it.</p><p>You might think that these sites are simply copying each other's code, but code similarity has actually significantly decreased over time. However, the use of software libraries has increased a lot.</p><p><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329455/original/file-20200421-82645-ey0sgs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329455/original/file-20200421-82645-ey0sgs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip"></a></p><p>The graph on the left shows a decline in code similarity among Russell 1000 websites, while the graph on the right indicates an increase in library overlap. (Sam Goree, Author provided)</p><p>Libraries feature collections of generic code for common tasks, like resizing a page for mobile devices or making a hamburger menu slide in and out. We looked at which sites had lots of libraries in common and how similar they looked. Sites built with certain libraries – Bootstrap, FontAwesome and JQuery UI – tended to look much more similar to each other. This could be because these libraries control page layout and have commonly used default options. Sites that used other libraries, like SWFObject and JQuery Tools, tended look much different, and that might be due to that fact that those libraries allow for more complex, customized pages.</p><p>The changes of websites from 2005 to 2016 illustrate what's happening.</p><p>Sites with average similarity scores in 2005 tended to look less similar than those with average similarity scores in 2016.</p><p>For example, in 2005, Webshots.com and Yum.com were considered relatively similar, but had somewhat different color schemes and very different layouts. While they both mostly use white, blue and black, the site on the right has a blue background.</p><p><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332794/original/file-20200505-83740-rkjqe6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332794/original/file-20200505-83740-rkjqe6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip"></a></p><p>Screenshots from 2006 of Webshots.com and Yum.com. (Sam Goree, Author provided</p><p>Two 2016 sites, Xfinity.com and Gilt.com, on the other hand, are even more similar: They both have a menu bar on the top and are primarily white and black with images. These pages have much less text and make better use of the higher resolution monitors that exist now.</p><p><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332836/original/file-20200505-83745-nl06nz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332836/original/file-20200505-83745-nl06nz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip"></a></p><p>Screenshots from 2016 of Xfinity.com and Gilt.com. (Sam Goree)</p>
<h2>Is conformity healthy?</h2><p>What should be made of this creeping conformity?</p><p>On the one hand, adhering to trends is totally normal in other realms of design, like fashion or architecture. And if designs are becoming more similar because they're using the same libraries, that means they're likely becoming more accessible to the visually impaired, since popular libraries are <a href="https://darekkay.com/blog/accessible-ui-frameworks/" target="_blank">generally better at conforming to accessibility standards</a> than individual developers. They're also more user-friendly, since new visitors won't have to spend as much time learning how to navigate the site's pages.</p><p>On the other hand, the internet is a shared cultural artifact, and its distributed, decentralized nature is what makes it unique. As home pages and fully customizable platforms like NeoPets and MySpace fade into memory, web design may lose much of its power as a form of creative expression. The Mozilla Foundation <a href="https://internethealthreport.org/2018/" target="_blank">has argued</a> that consolidation is bad for the "health" of the internet, and the aesthetics of the web could be seen as one element of its well-being.</p><p>And if sites are looking more similar because many people are using the same libraries, the large tech companies who maintain those libraries may be gaining a disproportionate power over the visual aesthetics of the internet. While publishing libraries that anyone can use is likely a net benefit for the web over keeping code secret, big tech companies' design principles are not necessarily right for every site.</p><p>This outsize power is part a larger story of consolidation in the tech industry – one that certainly <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/01/opinion/tech-companies-coronavirus.html" target="_blank">could be a cause for concern</a>. We believe aesthetic consolidation should be critically examined as well.</p><p><em>Bardia Doosti, David Crandall and Norman Su contributed to this article.</em></p><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/sam-goree-1025616" target="_blank">Sam Goree</a>, PhD Student in Informatics, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/indiana-university-1368" target="_blank">Indiana University</a></em></p><p>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com/" target="_blank">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/yes-websites-really-are-starting-to-look-more-similar-136484" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
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How swipe-based dating apps are impacting your mental health
Online dating has evolved, but at what cost?
26 May, 2020
Photo by Tero Vesalainen on Shutterstock
- Some dating apps allow individuals to interact and form romantic/sexual connections before meeting face to face with the ability to "swipe" on the screen to either accept or reject another user's profile. Popular swipe-based apps include Tinder, Bumble, and OkCupid.
- Research by Western Sydney University and the University of Sydney has linked the experience of swipe-based dating apps to higher rates of psychological distress and/or depression.
- Not all time spent on these apps is damaging, however. Up to 40 percent of current users say they previously entered a serious relationship with someone they met through one of these apps.
<p>The last decade has seen a rapid rise in online dating, and with it, a whole new way of having fun and finding the one. Tracking the "<a href="https://www.stylight.com/Magazine/Lifestyle/Love-First-Swipe-Evolution-Online-Dating/" target="_blank">evolution of online dating</a>," we learn that it actually started back in 1995 with the launch of Match.com. </p><p>Since then, swipe-based dating apps have taken over the online dating scene. These apps are a platform for individuals to interact and form romantic/sexual connections before meeting face to face with potential partners. What sets them apart from other online dating apps is the feature of "swiping" on the screen to either accept or reject another user's profile. Some of the most common apps that use this method are Tinder, Bumble, Happn, and OkCupid.</p><ul class="ee-ul"></ul>
How swipe-based dating apps negatively impact your mental health
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMxNjM1OS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMTIyMDIxOX0.hQtubGPxmKgUwtRgys2DzeuRjyfcQ9_0HlOV7lEYddI/img.jpg?width=980" id="7cbde" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9c5df8a4a0d15ad4c0efc42db61917b5" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="sad woman in bed looking at smartphone concept of mental health and dating apps swipe-based dating apps" />Many people who use swipe-based dating apps report feeling psychological distress and depressive symptoms.
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<p>Research by Western Sydney University and the University of Sydney has linked the experience of swipe-based dating apps to higher rates of psychological distress and/or depression.</p><p>An online survey (published in <a href="https://bmcpsychology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40359-020-0373-1" target="_blank">BMC Psychology</a>) of over 430 individuals compared the impact of dating habits on the mental health of people who use swipe-based dating apps and those who don't. </p><p>The measures used during this evaluation were the <a href="https://www.tac.vic.gov.au/files-to-move/media/upload/k10_english.pdf" target="_blank">Kessler Psychological Distress Scale</a>, the <a href="https://www.hiv.uw.edu/page/mental-health-screening/gad-2" target="_blank">Generalised Anxiety Disorder-2 scale</a>, the <a href="https://www.hiv.uw.edu/page/mental-health-screening/phq-2" target="_blank">Patient Health Questionnaire-2</a>, and the <a href="https://fetzer.org/sites/default/files/images/stories/pdf/selfmeasures/Self_Measures_for_Self-Esteem_ROSENBERG_SELF-ESTEEM.pdf" target="_blank">Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale.</a> An analysis of variance (a tool used in statistics that splits the data into two parts: systematic factors and random factors) was then used to consider all four mental health scores together. </p><p><strong>High psychological distress levels among swipe-based dating app users.</strong></p><p>20 percent of participants who use swipe-based dating apps reported a significantly higher level of psychological distress compared to those who didn't use these apps. </p><p>Sabrina Pit, one of the researchers on the project, explains: "We found an increased frequency of use and longer duration of time using the apps were both associated with greater psychological distress and depression." </p><p><strong>Current swipe-based dating app users show more depressive symptoms than non-users. </strong></p><p>19 percent of current users reported more depressive symptoms as a result of swipe-based dating app use, compared to 9 percent of the people surveyed who did not use a dating app. </p><p>"People who are currently using dating apps for a year or more were 3.5 times more likely to be distressed and 4 times more likely to report probable depression," Pit explains in an interview with <a href="https://www.globaldatinginsights.com/uncategorised/swipe-based-dating-apps-can-negatively-affect-mental-health-research-finds/" target="_blank">Global Dating Insights</a>. </p><p><strong>People are spending more and more time on dating apps. </strong></p><p><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/dating-apps-millenials-10-hours-per-week-tinder-bumble-romance-love-a8174006.html" target="_blank">A study of 5,000 people</a> between the ages of 18-30 years old shows that people are spending an average of 10 hours per week on dating apps alone. Men were logging on to check their status on dating apps 9 times a day, with women logging on 10 times per day to check their potential matches. How much time are they spending on these apps? Well, men were found to be spending 85 minutes per day on these apps, with women spending 79 minutes each day. </p><p>This amount of time spent on dating apps could boost the negative impacts we have seen through the study listed above.</p>Are there benefits to using swipe-based dating apps?
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMxNjM2MS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTU5OTY0MjE4N30.oMyNFdBj2GcEAFB2f3EE5c1naT71Q8L-eYAJcsezuB8/img.jpg?width=1245&coordinates=0%2C874%2C0%2C875&height=700" id="a00f2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="12bb0ad1095271a1dc83f2a157d52c4a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="concept of online dating swipe-based dating apps mental health" />It's not all bad - 40% of current swipe-based dating app users report a positive mental health impact from using these apps.
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<p>While the study proved that there are significant negative mental health risks that follow using swipe-based dating apps for longer periods of time, not all time spent on these apps is damaging.</p><p>"The findings highlight that dating apps with swiping functions have a complex impact on the psychological well-being of users," Pit explains. Although the findings of this study are worrisome, there are some benefits that were also highlighted in the results. </p><p><strong>Connections and serious relationships are being formed. </strong></p><p>Up to 40 percent of current swipe-based dating app users said they had previously entered a serious relationship with someone they met through one of these apps. 77 percent of people who reported using these apps also said they had met people face-to-face, with 26 percent of these people saying they had met more than 5 people through the apps.</p><p><strong>This connection with others leads to a positive impact on self-esteem. </strong></p><p>Meeting people, dating, and finding serious relationships through swipe-based dating apps has proven to have a positive impact on mental health as well, with up to 40 percent of individuals using these apps claiming it's had a positive impact on their self-esteem. </p><p><strong>Dating apps connect us with people we'd never meet otherwise. </strong></p><p>Back in 1995 when Match.com launched, there was <a href="https://www.ajc.com/lifestyles/dating/this-how-online-dating-changing-who-marry-unexpected-ways/cTWkpOjH1rGnJJNHm1irhN/" target="_blank">a spike in interracial marriages</a>. In today's society, these swipe-based dating apps allow you to browse based on where you are. If you move to a new city, your dating pool changes. The benefits of being able to connect with people we otherwise wouldn't meet is one of the best things dating apps have given us. </p><p><strong>Did you know that 70 percent of same-sex relationships start through dating apps? </strong></p><p>With the launch of Grindr in 2009, there was what can only be described as a <a href="https://www.stylight.com/Magazine/Lifestyle/Love-First-Swipe-Evolution-Online-Dating/" target="_blank">sexual revolution</a> within the LGBTQ+ community. Finding a partner became easier, safer, and more common. Not only was Grindr the first dating app that focused on the LGBTQ+ community, but it was also one of the first to use geolocation technology. </p><p>It's safe to say that digital dating isn't leaving us anytime soon, and neither is the use of swipe-based dating. There are negative and positive impacts of swipe-based dating apps on our mental health, but the questions is how can we increase the positive and decrease the negative? </p><p>The study by these two Australian universities isn't the first to question the mental health impact of dating apps. Back in 2017, <a href="https://www.globaldatinginsights.com/news/new-study-shows-tinder-affects-users-mental-health-self-esteem/" target="_blank">an unrelated study</a> linked the use of Tinder with negative self-esteem and body shame. </p><p>One of the researchers on the Australian-based study explains: "We are calling for app developers to take a more active role in the promotion of positive mental health messages, particularly on swipe-based dating applications." </p>
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