Editor's note: This deep dive was originally published on Valentine's Day, 2019.

The gamification of courtship has gone global, from viral matchmaker shows in China to Tinder users who don't stop swiping even after finding love.

The big picture: Apps are the new norm in dating. But the hyper-personalized and endless choices enabled by technology may actually be making it more difficult to meet “the one.”

Gamification is now built into dating:

• TV series like "The Bachelor," China's "If You Are the One" and Britain's "Love Island" have played off cultural courting traditions to create popular, dramatic and competitive game shows.
• In apps, the format of swiping can intensify pleasurable chemical reactions in the brain, and the “infinite scroll” persuades users to continue swiping into perpetuity.
• With almost endless options for partners, dating has become about "fast sex, slow love," Helen Fisher, chief scientific adviser for Match.com told Axios.

"The mechanics of the swipe feature: It's fun, it's a yes or no game."

By the numbers: Millennials spend 10 hours per week ondating apps, according to Badoo, the world’s most popular dating platform with more than 400 million users in 190 countries.

• And almost one in six singles (15%) say they feel addicted to the process of looking for a date, per a 2017 Match survey.

Why it matters: Part of playing the game is to make yourself as desirable as possible, which can lead to high, unmet expectations.

• "We’re showing people this near perfect version of ourselves. It is highly tailored," Ohio State University's Jesse Fox told Axios. "You build up your hopes and expectations and then you meet — and it's awkward."
• Many dating app executives who spoke with Axios are wary to call the platforms a game. "People are trying to maximize to find the ideal," Bumble's in-house sociologist, Jessica Carbino, suggests, "which is the sort of market nature of love."
• "People are able to go on more dates, find more people and, as a result, they're actually waiting longer to get married than ever before, but they're also, I think, choosing the best partner for them," McLeod said.

The bottom line: In 2017, 39% of U.S. heterosexual relationships and 65% of same-sex relationships began online. And apps aren't going away.

• For some, "it's a form of work, not just a game anymore," says Stephanie Tong of Wayne State University.
• A cottage industry of services to write profiles, tend to matches and get swipes is popping up. Some, like Relationship Hero, have coaches around the world, available 24/7 to text, call or even video chat through a user's dating woes.
• Now, Tong says, it isn't about projecting confidence face-to-face but about how to write a fancier profile.

Go deeper:

Nice biceps? Swipe right.

Cringeworthy photo? Left.

Funny bio? Right. We matched!

As we swipe through a series of profiles on Tinder like it’s a deck of cards, it can almost feel like a game of how to optimize our profiles to collect the most matches and maybe get a date every once in a while.

With TV shows like “The Bachelor” and popular dating apps like Tinder that make a game out of love weaving their way into the fabric of romantic and pop culture, it begs the question, what does this mean for the single people of the world?

Gamification takes typical elements from games, game-like attributes and ideas from game-playing, and puts them into practice in areas other than entertainment. “The idea [of gaming] is how can we solve some sort of problem or bring attention to something by making it a game so that people are more interested,” says Genelle Belmas, an associate professor in the journalism school at the University of Kansas who teaches the class “Gamification in the Professions.”

Gamification has become commonplace in many aspects of our daily lives, whether it’s collecting holes on a punch card for the number of drinks we order, or it's the number of followers we have on Instagram, or even how we learned long division in grade school. 

Jonathan Badeen, the co-founder of Tinder who invented the swiping format, noted in HBO’s documentary “Swiped”that he was inspired by a psychological study by B.F. Skinner where pigeons were trained to gamble. In this study, pigeons were randomly offered food following their pecking. This caused the pigeons to peck often in hope of receiving food, but the two were not actually dependent on each other.

Like pigeons pecking for food, there is no guarantee that using the same apps over and over again can result in a relationship. As more and more people test out their chances of love online, millennials spend an average of 10 hours a week on dating apps, according to a study done byBadoo.com

Alison David, a matchmaker and COO atMidwest Matchmaking, thinks it's good to put yourself out there and date online. As a matchmaking service, her company helps find and match single individuals in person.

However, David also says that online dating has had an effect on how everyone dates. “We are living in an age where ghosting is considered socially acceptable, and people dismiss a person for not responding to a text fast enough,” David says. “I feel online dating has created an approach of ‘the grass is always greener,’ where you can meet someone new within an hour of hopping on Tinder, if you wish.” 

But the same question remains: is the gamification of love bad for relationships? There isn’t a clear answer.

“There is a reason why boutique matchmaking agencies like us have seen tremendous growth the last few years, especially among young professionals,” David says. “Singles who choose a matchmaker usually do so because they are not wanting to use online dating sites. Either they desire a more private approach to finding a partner, or they have tried online and do not like it.”

In 2017, 39% of U.S. heterosexual relationships and 65% of same-sex relationships began online, according to a study fromStanford University. It’s clear that these apps aren’t going anywhere. 

“For heterosexual folks, it has not been as dramatic of a shift for how courtship has happened, but its been a very important for sexual minority individuals,” says Jeffrey Hall, a communications studies professor at the University who focuses on relationships and social interactions.

The long-term effects of gamification still aren’t widely studied, Belmas says. However, Hall says the idea that online dating is ruining a generation is not likely. “I just don’t think there is evidence to support that,” Hall says. “I would add that one of the most valuable things that it's added, is access to people who are clear about their intentions of relationships.” 

It is clear that young adults have responded well to dating apps, regardless of the effect it’s had on dating culture. According to aPew Research Center survey, 48% of 18 to 29-year-olds in the U.S. have used an online dating app or website.

“Now, you have a whole range of tools to access people in ways that you didn’t in the past. So, I tend to be skeptical of any argument that says young adults can’t talk to people face-to-face because they have to use Tinder,” Hall says.

Growing up, I hated video games. I would play with Lego while my (mostly male) family and friends sat in front of their screens for hours, obsessing about getting to the next level in Mario Kart or throwing down their controllers when their mortal enemy in Street Fighter finished them with a killer roundhouse combo. Fast-forward a couple of decades and here I am again, this time faced with a new kind of video game, one that I can’t simply ignore: the dating app. It goes like this: At level one, we swipe yay or nay on potential suitors based on a 300-character “bio” (often consisting of obscure song lyrics) and some curated photos with sedated Southeast Asian tigers. One use of the wrong there/their/they’re and all points are lost and that person is blacklisted. If the app-lationship progresses to level two, we mutually follow each other on social media, expressing romantic interest through a series of strategic likes and perhaps—if we’re so bold—a winky-face emoji. This double tap is our generation’s love language—but the same fickle finger can easily unfollow, block or delete a person who has sent a shady DM (minus 10 points) or whom we simply deem no longer worthy of our time (TKO). In level three, we take the binary-code passion to real life, but nine times out of 10 there’s no connection and it’s game over—and then on to the next player. 

If it feels so pointless, why do I—and 36 percent of Canadians—still play? Well, there’s the obvious: In our increasingly online world, it seems to be the easiest way to connect with someone. And whether it’s Bumble, Tinder or Hinge, the gamelike interfaces of these apps seem to appeal to my generation’s goldfish-like attention span. In fact, the apps stimulate the same neurochemicals that are activated when we play video games, according to experts. “The way the interface is made up—the things that happen when you get matched— it’s almost like you’re winning a prize,” says Professor Jooyoung Lee, a sociologist who lectures about sexuality in the era of #MeToo at the University of Toronto. The app’s “You have a new match!” message triggers us to want more of that addicting affirmation. That the options seem limitless is equally enticing, and even more so when the app—like the League (the go-to for flush yuppies) or celebrity fave Raya—promises better, more interesting, more successful and more attractive candidates. 

But in the same way that you can heartlessly blast away enemies in video games, Tinder and the like can also make the person on the other end of the swipe seem disposable. “Because we have this online catalogue, we erroneously think that there is a never-ending selection of people who could be better than the last,” says relationship expert June Morrow, author of Love Lessons From a Lap Dancer. These seemingly infinite options make it so tempting to keep playing the game, and if someone doesn’t quite tick all the boxes, you simply let the text thread die out. (Flash back to the time Tinder Chris ghosted me when he realized, after hours of chatting, that I was the one on the left, not the right.) 

It’s also easy to forget that there are people with actual human emotions on the other side of the screen. But Dr. Jess Carbino, Bumble’s in-house sociologist (dubbed the “Dr. Ruth” of the swipe-right generation), argues that ghosting is less about the medium and more about our social accountability (or lack thereof). “Historically, we were introduced to future spouses through institutions in which we were already embedded, like churches and neighbourhoods,” she says. Today, connections in our networks are fewer or don’t exist at all, so we have less culpability for treating somebody poorly than we would if we’d been introduced by a friend or co-worker. 

Still, it’s true that dating has always been something of a game—whether it’s waiting three days to call someone or only saying “I love you” after the other person says it first. And apps aren’t solely to blame for the gamification of dating: The pop culture we consume (e.g., The Bachelor) encourages us to treat dating as a series of tests and pursuits after which the winner gets lifelong sex, love and partnership. Dating apps just leverage a very natural instinct, argues Carbino. She says that when we’re looking at somebody, even just their photograph, we’re engaging in a psychological process known as “thin-slicing,” in which we make quick judgments about people— including whether or not they’re a match for us. And studies show that the impressions we develop in the first three seconds can be as stable as the ones we have after three hours. (Although that doesn’t necessarily mean these impressions are spot-on—we may just be clinging to unconscious biases.) 

So where do we go from here? If the game is inevitable no matter the format, how do we at least give ourselves the best shot at winning? Morrow’s advice is to avoid going online if you’re feeling lonely or angry: Chances are you’re looking for some sort of validation from a stranger. She also suggests meeting sooner rather than later to avoid getting overinvested before testing your in-person attraction. And, perhaps most important of all, she stresses that online rejection is not personal rejection; it just means you’re not a fit for each other. “We’re not good for every job in the world, and not every piece of clothing looks good on us, so why should every guy be a match?” she asks. 

And maybe that is what’s at the heart of my dating-app cynicism: I’ve been taking the game too personally, seeking validation from an infinite pool of possible rejectors and taking every misstep as a reflection of my personal worth. And I’ve gone all in too early. While I hate the idea of emotional distance, presuming a connection too soon is sure to amp up the emotional trauma when I get to level three and realize there’s no IRL sizzle. My key lesson? Playing the game can be fun—but making a true connection means getting real.

This article originally appeared in the October 2018 issue of ELLE Canada.

Even as pandemic restrictions ease, people are still using online dating apps to seek relationships. According to The Knot, online dating was the most popular way to meet a spouse, where 22% of newlywed respondents said they met their partner online, while 19% met through friends and 17% met through work — and that was in 2019.

Today, there are over 5,000 dating apps worldwide, with 2,500 operating in the U.S. alone. But these sheer usage numbers don’t tell the whole story. Users are craving for full-featured dating apps that not only offer tools to chat, but also features that really engage them to drive meaningful conversations. 

Here’s one statistic that encompasses the need for “something more” than just texting: Tinder users are exchanging more than 4.2 Million GIFs per week. This is a loud-and-clear signal from dating app users saying “give us more!” in terms of features that actually engage them. 

But, as far as dating app development is considered, how do you increase user engagement in a way that keeps them coming back for more? That’s what we will cover in this article. 

How to Increase Engagement and User Retention In Dating Apps

Before we go through our dating site feature list, let’s review what typically happens when someone starts using a dating app.

First, they fill out their profile and upload a few photos of themselves. 

Second, they start searching for matches based on their location, preferences and interests. 

Once they match with someone who has potential, they find a way to connect and engage with that match. This is where your dating app can shine with a full featured chat with voice, and video calling functionality. 

Rather than dry SMS text messaging, full featured chat with rich media and social media integrations is a great way to keep your users engaged and connected with their potential matches, whether they are looking for a long-term relationship or a casual hook-up. 

Even when your users do engage, there’s still the challenge where they exchange phone numbers to take their conversation off your platform — or worse, letting their conversations fizzle out. 

To keep them on your platform, you’ll want to offer the best dating app features that actually drive engagement. Other than a full featured chat, you could offer in-app games to keep things fun and lively enough to get your users to want to stay in your app. You could also offer functionality that allows them to exchange voice notes or initiate video chat sessions without leaving the app. 

To enable these, you’d need a voice and video calling API to integrate those functionalities into your app. CometChat offers a safe, secure, and feature-rich voice and video chat API that keeps users coming back for more.

7 Dating App Features that Spark Connections Between Users

Apart from the obvious candidates such as geolocation, preference-based filtering, privacy and security safeguards, there are top dating app features that specifically aim to increase user-to-user engagement. 

In this section, we listed some features of a dating app that boost engagement, as well as how they work, plus examples and if available, API options you can explore.

1. Gamified User Profiles

Being at the top of any dating site feature list, a user profile is an essential part of any dating app. It typically contains some basic information, such as gender, age, location, a catchy tagline to show some personality, a list of interests, and a few photos. However, as we have seen with countless dating apps and platforms, basic user profiles alone have minimal impact on user engagement, if at all.

Your dating app can go even further by helping your users make their own profiles more interesting and creative in a way that helps their individual personalities shine through.

Gamification helps do that. Bumble’s ideas include adding intriguing questions and conversation starters. And matches that would disappear in 24 hours if the user doesn’t start a chat with them.

Tinder’s idea is to provide users with a limited number of “super likes” that bump their own profile to the top of their super-liked user’s account. Super likes can even be monetized by giving users the option, or a subscription plan, to purchase more when they run out. 

2. In-app Chat and Messaging

Although text messaging is critical to a dating app, users are hungry for full-featured chat such as voice notes, video messages, image filters. It makes chat less dry and more fun, which helps build better connections between users, increasing the chance of relationships in real life.

CometChat offers an in-app chat API fully adaptable to any platform you may use, including VueJS, React, React Native, and more. 

For images and filters, you can use the Imgix Management API to enable your users to add and manage photos, and the Rendering API to enable image filters.

3. Ice breakers

Even when a match is made, it doesn’t mean that users will initiate the first conversation on their own. The reason is, for many people, it can be intimidating to make the first move. 

This is where ice breakers come in. 

To get your dating app to succeed and compete with the industry giants in terms of app engagement and retention, you’ll want to give them some easy conversation starters such as trivia and rapid-fire questions to break the ice.

eHarmony’s Ice Breakers

For example, eHarmony uses an image-based Icebreaker Feature in their app for both basic and premium members, allowing them easy ways to break the ice or keep conversations going. 

Tinder Prompts

Tinder also uses cue cards called Prompts including “Two truths and a lie”, “I’m talking to my pet about _____” and other casual questions that prompts matches to fill in, giving users a sneak peak into their lives.

Icebreakers are increasingly becoming one of the best dating app features, so don’t forget to include some light and charming icebreakers when building your dating app.

4. Voice and Video Calling

Voice and video calling features, with filters, allows users to move beyond text chat into something more personal and intimate, and also provides your app with a monetization opportunity by making this a paid premium feature.

CometChat provides a secure and full-featured voice, text, and video API to integrate within your dating app based on the platform, SDK, or framework of your choosing. 

5. Smart Push Notifications

Push notifications are a major driver for user retention. These are among the most essential dating app features not only for alerting users when they get a message from a potential match, but also bringing users back to your app and keeping them there. 

OneSignal offers a fast and reliable API enabling push notifications for both web and mobile apps.

6. In-app Games

To keep your users engaged and keep their conversations going without them moving off your app, it’ll take more than a few ice breakers and full-featured chat or video calling. 

Enter in-app games. 

Because in-app games don’t often show up on dating site feature lists, this is where you can get creative. You can test some ideas with a small part of your user base, and roll out the winners among the rest of your users. 

To help inspire some ideas, here are a couple of successful examples:

Bumble’s Night In

While people were social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic, Bumble created the Night In feature that lets users play in-app games while on a virtual date. 

Although virtual dates can never match the intimacy of in-person dates, users have reported using the app more and being less awkward on virtual dates.

Crown

Many Tinder users reported spending 10 hours a week swiping and getting so many matches while looking for someone better. Overwhelmed with so many choices, they often end up with nobody. 

To solve this “swipe fatigue” problem, Crown created a gamification feature where users get a limited selection of curated matches at noon daily. What’s more, Crown lets users “crown the winners” (hence the app name), narrowing them down to a manageable selection of profiles.

7. Social Media Integrations

To make user profiles feel more real and authentic, your dating app would do well to integrate with popular social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. 

However, it's important to understand that this isn’t just to pull in some personal data and extra photos from Facebook profiles into your app. Social media integrations can be used to authenticate your users, preventing the proliferation of fake profiles that have plagued other online dating platforms such as Tinder and OKCupid. 

Besides authentication, social media integrations provide your users with the opportunity to develop connections based on mutual connections and shared interests.

Each social media platform offers its APIs that dating app developers can use to integrate into their own app:

• Facebook offers the HTTP-based Graph API to allow your app to interact with Facebook.
  

• Spotify also offers a web API to help you integrate their functionality within your dating app, allowing users to match based on music interests. 
  

• Instagram offers a Basic Display API via Facebook that allows your app to display profile information, photos, and videos from your user’s Instagram profiles.
  

These are just a few API options out of many social media integrations available. Nearly every social media platform has API instructions for developers.

Key Takeaways

A dating app that gets traction with enough users to be profitable is difficult to develop. It requires both high user engagement and high user retention. Fortunately, there are limitless ways to get creative with features that spark engagement and nurture budding connections that could result in relationships in real life.

We’ve just listed the best dating app features to hopefully jog your creativity and inspiration. You may even build a feature that nobody has thought of and yet hits the ball out of the park!

If you’re ready to start building your own dating app do check out this guide.  It talks about everything you need to know to get started.

If you’re ready to integrate chat into your dating app, sign up to our developer dashboard and get started right away, for free..

About the Author

Nabeel Keblawi, a deaf entrepreneur, runs a Content Marketing and SEO agency that helps B2B SaaS companies grow organically in their industries around the world. His previous work experience involved software development, renewable energy, and cloud computing. In his personal life, Nabeel loves to go hiking with his family, and dust off his skis to hit the slopes given the chance. He is also an avid reader of fictional history.

The 'gamification' of dating apps is damaging singleton's chances of spotting the right match for them, a psychiatrist has warned.  

Swiping through endless faces on apps like Tinder and Bumble, known as 'infinite swipe', 

The practice has become so addictive that more than one in 10 users swipe for over 14 hours a week, a survey backing up the claims has revealed.

Scroll down for video 

Research has found that nearly 30 per cent of dating app users are spending over seven hours per week trying to find a match, and 14 per cent swipe for over 14 hours, encouraged by a phenomena known as 'infinite swipe' that sees users swiping through endless faces on the app

The rise of dating apps has given rise to a new user phenomenon: the 'infinite swipe.  

Just as other tech platforms such as Facebook and Google have adopted the persuasive design feature of infinite scroll, to engage the user in habit forming experiences, dating apps have leveraged the power of the 'infinite swipe'.

Users are 'nudged" to process the face of a potential match in less than a second, with little or no context on the person's personality.

'Whilst love at first sight can happen in a moment, this gamification of such an important life search is potentially demeaning to all,' said Dr Richard Graham, clinical director of Good Thinking, a London digital mental well-being service.

'It's time we placed more importance on taking time to get to know someone, on personality and conversation, rather than basing decisions on looks alone. 

'Would you just choose the person who can take a great selfie?'

Alex Durrant, CEO of JigTalk which commissioned the research, and hides users' faces until they have engaged substantially in conversation with matches, says he is releasing the figures to highlight the growing dependency on rating partners by looks alone

A survey of 1,000 dating app users in the UK has found that that nearly a third (30 per cent) spending more seven hours per week trying to find a match and 14 per cent swipe for over 14 hours. 

Men were found to be more promiscuous with dating apps than women, with nearly half (40 per cent) using three or more apps at a time. One in ten men admitted to using more than five dating apps at the same time.

Men also spend more time trying to find a date than their opposite sex, with one third (34 per cent) swiping for over an hour each day compared with just a quarter of women (27 per cent). 

Forty per cent of men use three or more apps at a time, with one in ten using more than five to find a date.

Despite 76 per cent of users matching with over 30 people each month, only 22 per cent have had more than 10 conversations. 

A quarter of women revealed they hadn't been on a single date in the past six months.

While 26 per cent of men questioned admitted to swiping right, for a 'yes' on more than half of the users they came across, only nine per cent of women swiped right, or 'no', to more than half of their options.

The research also found that males and females have different opinions on the key traits they look for in a partner. 

Men rated looks as the most important factor in a match, followed by sense of humour and conversational skills, while women rated a sense of humour as the most important, followed by conversational skills, looks and height. 

The survey was commissioned by Alex Durrant, CEO of JigTalk, a dating app that aims to put 'personality' rather than 'looks' at the forefront of online dating.

JigTalk says it tries to encourage conversation by initially hiding a users' face, before  revealing it like pieces of a puzzle the more users talk to each other. 

JigTalkers have to send eight messages each to completely unveil their match's face.

Mr Durrant, said: 'Dating apps have led to hundreds of thousands of marriages and partnerships across the world, but we must use them as messaging platforms to make conversations on, rather than just photo sharing apps.

'Getting to know a potential partner's personality is key to finding love. It's an innate need which goes hand in hand with visual attraction. 

'You wouldn't meet someone in a bar and not talk to them, so it's crazy why we do this on dating apps.'

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Applying gamification to drive persuasion of dating apps: A literature study Kien Nguyen, dating app gamification, 4050673 SEPAM Information Architecture Information Retrieval Delft University of Technology Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science 1. Introduction The development of advanced smartphones has led to dating app gamification new opportunities to enrich people’s life. However, this rapid rise of mobile computing urges technology companies to create products that are even more integrated into the users pro-active life. Moreover in our modern era, where access to information and technology is at the fingertip of any user at any time, commercial and behavioral competition is fiercer than ever before. Therefore it is important to understand and create habit-shaping products and services that are driven by users’ motivation (Eyal, 2014). Persuasive technologies try to fit into this realm by designing computers, mobile phones, websites and other applications in such way that it influence people’s behavior and attitude (Byrnes, 2015), dating app gamification. The concept of persuasive technology dates back from early the 90’s by B.J. Fogg (Fogg, 2009), however until the last couple of years, studies at the intersection of various disciplines such as information and computers science, psychology and systems thinking, have led to new insights and methods to improve persuasion of technology. One of the methods that catch much attention in the field of persuasive technology lately is gamification. Gamification is a method that uses game design techniques and mechanics to enhance non-game contexts (Deterding & Dixon, 2011). It is the craft of optimizing human motivation in a system, approaching problem solving more from a Human-Focused Design, rather than Function-Focused Design (Chou, 2015). When using right, gamification has proven to drive performance metrics effectively in a wide range of contexts such as educational systems at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands (Iosup, 2015), health science application such as Foldit (Eiben et al., 2012) and dating services such as Zoosk (Hooker, 2012). Applying gamification in the latter context has proven to be especially effective on mobile apps. Dating apps are used as an example to other industries how to gamify their products and services (UrbanAirship, 2015). As the market revenue of mobile dating is projected at €385 million by 2017 (Jayson, 2013), it is relevant to examine how to apply gamification effectively on mobile dating apps. This paper investigates how dating apps can be gamified to create more engaging experiences that align with users’ daily routines and shape habits. We will conduct our analysis through Yuk-Ai Chou’s Octalysis gamification framework (Chou, 2015), to study how users’ motivation of dating apps can be utilized by game mechanics. Applying gamification differs from each case, it is impossible to come up with a fit for all solution. Thus the goal for this paper is not to give a complete solution that are applicable in all situation, rather it shows a study how to look at gamification when putting it into context of dating apps, dating app gamification. 2. Theoretical Framework The Octalysis Framework The Octalysis framework is a gamification framework that consists of eight different motivations, called Core Drives, dating app gamification, that move us towards a variety of decisions and to take action. The eight Core Drives are: 1. Epic Meaning & Calling; Motivated through feeling special or the chosen one to take action for higher goals. 2. Development & Accomplishment; dating app gamification Motivated through learn new skills and sense of growth. 3. Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback; Motivated through expression of emotions and joy. 4. Ownership & Possession; Motivated by the feeling of ownership, protection and obtaining. 5. Social Influence & Relatedness; Motivated through perception of other people. 6. Scarcity & Impatience; Motivated by urge to have something immediately that has limited access. 7. Unpredictability & Curiosity; Motivated through uncertainty and involve chance. 8, dating app gamification. Loss & Avoidance; Motivated through undesirable events and fear of losing something. The eight Core Drives are placed among each side of an octagonal. The application that needs to be gamified will be put into perspective of these Core Drives, and thereafter appealing dating app gamification mechanics to each Core Drive will be identified. The topological order of the Core Drives within the framework is an important property that can be used to evaluate gamification principles, dating app gamification. The right side of the octagonal, so called Right Brain, deals with intrinsic motivations, while the left side, called Left Brain, deals with extrinsic motivations. Intrinsic motivation is defined as doing an activity for its inherent satisfactions rather than for some separable consequence, while extrinsic motivation is defined as doing an activity to attain some separable outcome (Deci & Richard, 1985). Motivation on the upper half of the octagonal are called Dating app gamification Hat gamifications, these are motivations that are engaging because they let users express their creativity, dating app gamification, make them feel successful through skill mastery, it makes them feel powerful and meaningful, dating app gamification. On the other hand the lower half of the octagonal are filled with Black Hat gamifications, these are bisexual men dating that occurs when users are at risk of losing something, or experience the feeling of missing out, dating app gamification. This constant fear motivates them to take action.  Octalysis Framework, Yuk-Ai Chou (2015). 3. Gamifying Dating Apps Players The more is known about users and their motivation while interaction with the system the better we can design a persuasive application for. Users are called players in the context of gamification and can be divided into four Player Types; Achievers, Explorers, Socializers and Killers (Bartle, 1996). Achievers are players who want to accomplish and master all objectives, Explorers are players who continuously looking for new dating app gamification to discover, Socializers are players who wants to interact with other players, and Killers are players who strife for superiority over others and want recognition for that. To put these player types into context of dating apps we will analyze them further using the Dating app gamification Drives. Achievers could be people who are motivated to fill in their full users’ profile description during the onboarding phase, because it gives them a good feeling about the accomplishment (Core Drive 2), dating app gamification. Achievers also enjoy to access exclusive content. They enjoy hunting for scarcity (Core Drive 6). Explorers are users that mainly driven by curiosity and unpredictability of the system (Core Drive 7) (Chou, 2015), to them it is important that the dating application provides enough free movement and to discover interesting people or potential lovers. Furthermore it motivate them to use the application even more if they are confronted with potential dates that they have never discovered on their own initiative and capabilities. Socializers are key players in the context of dating app because dating itself is a social activity where interaction between players is ongoing. Identity formation is how people defines themselves and how they are connected to other people and social groups, and is a key concept in internet dating (Pace, Reid, & Santarelli, 2015). To utilize socializers and their motivation the app should provide features to let users express themselves (Core Drive 3) and evaluate how they think about others and how others think about them (Core Drive 5). Killers in dating applications are motivated by getting the most attention from others users and showing this off to the community (Core Drive 2 & 5). They are thrilled for the amount of ‘likes’, ‘shares’ and ‘followers’. 3.1 Game Elements Points, Badges & Rewards Points and badges are classic game elements and in many cases they represent to some extent the players’ results, progression or reputation. It does not matter how points are implemented in the system, it is absolute requirement for all gamified systems (Zicbermann & Cunningham, 2011). Points and badges are a form of extrinsic rewards to players (Chou, 2015). The way rewards work is that it should only be given when it match the right intended action of the user to reinforce their motivation (Eyal, 2014). Moreover, dating app gamification, giving rewards to actions most popular dating apps in usa have no meaning to core objectives of players, could even lower the motivation to take action than without giving any rewards at all. We will discuss this later on in this paper. To understand for which activities players should get rewarded, it is important to realize why the action was taken, because rewards must align with the users’ intentions (Eyal, 2014). There are three types of rewards: Rewards of the hunt, Rewards of the tribe and Rewards of the self (Eyal, 2014). Rewards of the hunt are rewards that are given to players when they are in search for resources. Rewards of the tribe, also known as social rewards, are driven by the connectivity with other users of the system. People tend to seek rewards that they get reddit dating a ukraine woman others to feel important and relevant. Rewards of the self are rewards that are fueled with intrinsic motivation. To design rewarding systems in dating apps we should consider the player types and their Core Drives. Explorers, dating app gamification example, have a strong need to discover new interesting people they might want to date. This shows that they have a strong need to get rewarded for their hunting, dating app gamification. Rewarding them with a random badge after they interact with new people or simply presenting them with random, but relevant potential dating candidates might reinforce their motivation to use the app again. A real case example of the latter game mechanic is the highly successful dating app Tinder. Tinder presents the user with (to some extent) randomly sorted photos of dating app gamification nearby and asks whether they like this person or not. Every time the user open up the app they discover new potential dating candidates. Tinder’s design creates an engaging game for the explorer type of player by successfully utilizing intrinsic motivations from Core Drive 5 & 7. Note that the reward here is not represented with points or badges, but rather with an intrinsic reward. To create rewards of the tribes, users should award others with points or badges in the community for their activities. Chou argues in his research that these extrinsic rewards motivate especially achievers. To create an engaging game for them Core Drives in the Left Brain should be utilized. This can be done by giving users tools to express their respect to others identity formation (profile photo, avatar, user profile), a classic tool for this is the ‘Like’ button known from social media. Another way to enforce Core Drives 2, 4 and 5 is to hand out points or badges while users are interacting with each other in the community. A real case example of this is another dating app called Badoo. On Badoo users receive badges for achieving several interactions with others. User can receive a badge for being ‘Friendly’ if he or she frequently hands out ‘likes’ to others in the community. By limiting exchange of badges or points (karma point) (Zicbermann & Cunningham, 2011), for example, by giving user the possibility to assign badges or points to others once a week, this game mechanic can be pushed even further by creating scarcity that fuels Core Drive 6 and makes hunting for the tribes even more rewarding and appealing to achievers and socializers. Rewards of the self are fueled by Right Brain Core Drives. For dating apps this means that users might want to be in control of their users’ profile and manage settings within the application. By doing this they gain a sense of competency which is one of the human desire according the self-determination theory dating app gamification Edward Deci and Richard Ryan (Deci & Richard, 1985). To reward players of the self the application should provide extensive tools to let people manage how they wish to be matched with others and showing this with visual compelling designs of badges and user profiles. This not only utilizes Core Drive 3 & 5 but also give the user a feeling of ownership that fuels Core Drive 4. An example of this is how dating platforms such as OKcupid let users take surveys to see how they score on different characteristics. The reward here is that users get a to know more about themselves and to show this the application assigns badges, persona’s, personal score boards and graphs to the users’ identity. This game technique might attract explorers because by giving different answers to the survey, explorers might find a way to get to the desire result. On the other hand socializers could enjoy this game as well because they can show their badges or scores to others, giving them an impression of what they are. 3.2 Gamification traps and challenges As mentioned earlier, dating app gamification only works when it fits within the purpose of the user to take action. Incentivizing users with points or badges for taking actions or completing tasks that they do not want to execute will not motivate them to do so. Giving rewards such as points and badges to actions that do not align with the users motivation could backfires the users’ motivation. Therefore it is key to understand whether motivations are intrinsic and extrinsic. The overjustification effect Research has shown that giving frequent extrinsic motivation to an action can come at the expense of intrinsic motivation. This is called the overjustification effect (Lepper, Greene, & Nisbett, 1973). In the context of gamification, the overjustification effect occurs when extrinsic motivators such as points, badges and leaderboards impairs intrinsic motivation (Chou, 2015). For example, dating apps should not pay their users with money to contribute content about them, such as photos, even though more users content could yield great commercial benefits. This because the intrinsic motivation of taking pictures and share them with friends for joy (Core Drive 3 & 5) will shift to an extrinsic motivation of getting money for each contributed photo (Core Drive 4). Dating app gamification danger here is when the application stops paying its users for contributing photos, users might stop taking pictures as well because they are not motivated anymore since the extrinsic motivation is removed. Black Hat Unlike White Hat gamification techniques, where players are motivated by high sense of meaning, expressing creativity and successful skill mastery, Black Hat gamification techniques utilizes users’ motivation when they fear to lose something, not knowing what happens dating app gamification and struggling with obtaining their desires. Implementing Black Hat gamification techniques could be very powerful, sometimes even more powerful than White Hat techniques. Dating app gamification example, research have shown that when we lose an option we will pay more to retain it, than the actual option is worth it (Shin & Ariely, 2004). However it is important to understand that Black Hat gamifications also have serious drawbacks when the application is heavenly utilizing on Black Hat motivations of users. In the earlier example of this best polyamory dating app we stated that Tinder successfully keeps users guessing who their next potential dating candidate is. This technique let users perform an action because they have no clue what happens next. The danger here is when users do not get rewarded frequently with taking the action they do not see the benefit of taking the action anymore in the long run. For Tinder this means that if they let people guessing who their next potential dating candidate is, they have to make sure that attractive candidates are presented frequently. From the perspective of the Octalysis framework this means that after users took dating app gamification because of Black Hat motivations, in this case Core Drive 6 & 7, the application should quickly utilize White Hat motivations to keep the users engaged. 4. Conclusion Gamification is a strong method to gain engagement of users if it enforces their motivation to take action. To apply gamification correctly a great understanding of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation of users towards the application is required. Assigning game elements such as points, dating app gamification, badges and other rewards to users should only occur when it already fits the narrative of why the application is used. Signs dating turning into relationship, it is important to analyze different player types when applying gamification to engage them. From this paper it can be concluded that Bartle’s four players model consisting of Explorers, Socializers, Killers and Achievers, provides a fitting framework to create gamification techniques around them. Thereafter the Octalysis of Yuk-Ai Chou and Nir Eyal’s arguments on rewards, gives a working environment to evaluate users motivation and help designers come up with gamification techniques that aligns with their motivation. Gamifying dating apps has proven to be successful in various fashions. Both extrinsic and intrinsic motivators might work to drive more persuasive experiences, dating app gamification. Dating itself is a social activity, however it is possible to use game techniques to create an engaging application for other type of player than socializers. Gamification can be used to create an appealing game for achievers by assigning badges to users for performing social interaction with others. To create an attractive game for explorers in dating dating app gamification, gamification techniques could implement scarcity and unpredictability. Showing users random potential date candidates is a proven way to do this. Gamification can also result into critical negative experiences when using it incorrectly. Assigning rewards to activities that the user is not tended to execute might harm the motivation. Furthermore, extrinsic motivation can impairs intrinsic motivation when the action is rewarded inappropriately, leading to overjustification effect in the long run. Utilizing Black Hat motivations are risky and should be quickly followed with frequent White Hat gamification techniques. Poor understanding and orchestration for shifting between Black and White Hat game techniques lead to users dropouts. Literature Bartle, R. (1996). Heart, Clubs, dating app gamification, Diamonds, Spades: Players Who Suit Muds. University of Essex. Retrieved from http://mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm#1 Byrnes, N. (2015). Technology and Persuasion. MIT. Retrieved from http://www.technologyreview.com/news/535826/technology-and-persuasion/ Chou, Y, dating app gamification. (2015). Dating app gamification Gamification: Beyond Points, Badges, and Leaderboards (p. 493). Deci, E., & Richard, R. (1985). Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior. New York: Springer, dating app gamification. Deterding, dating app gamification, S., & Dixon, D. (2011). Gamification : Using Game Design Elements in Non-Gaming Contexts. CHI 2011: Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 5–8. doi:10.1145/1979742.1979575 Eiben, C. B., Siegel, J. B., Bale, J. B., Cooper, dating app gamification, S., Khatib, F., Shen, B. W., dating app gamification, … Baker, D. (2012). Increased Diels-Alderase activity through backbone remodeling dating app gamification guided by Foldit players. Nature Biotechnology, 30(January), 190–192. doi:10.1038/nbt.2109 Eyal, N. (2014). Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products. Penguin. Fogg, B. (2009). A behavior model for persuasive design. Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Persuasive Technology - Persuasive ’09, 1. doi:10.1145/1541948.1541999 Hooker, H. (2012). Zoosk integrates gamification into its online dating community. Retrieved from http://venturebeat.com/2012/03/20/zoosk-integrates- gamification-into-its-online-dating-community-interview/ Iosup, A. (2015). Gamifcation. Delft: Delft University of Technology, dating app gamification. Jayson, S. (2013). Mobile Apps Tap The Changing Face Of Online Dating. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/02/13/online-dating- mobile-apps/1902011/ Lepper, M., Greene, D., & Nisbett, R. (1973). Undermining Children’s Intrinsic dating app gamification Interest With Extrinsic Rewards: A Test of The Overjustication Hypothesis, dating app gamification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, (28), 129–137. Dating app gamification, M., Reid, A., & Santarelli, J. (2015), dating app gamification. The Psychology of Dating. Retrieved from http://webspace.ship.edu/jacamp/psyberpsych/Dating/Index.htm Shin, J., & Ariely, D. (2004). Keeping Doors Open: The Effect of Unavailability on Incentives to Keep Options Viable. Management Science, 50(5), 575–586. doi:10.1287/mnsc.1030.0148 UrbanAirship. (2015). The game of Love. Zicbermann, G., & Cunningham, C. (2011). Gamification by Design: Implementing Game Mechanics in Web and Mobile Apps. Oreilly & Associates Inc. doi:10.1093/intimm/dxs132 

I’ve asked quite a few people why they use dating apps. The answer? An ego boost.

It's kind of counter-intuitive; you would expect them to say to find a hook-up or a life-long partner. These elements appear to be secondary on the agenda, and in fact the life-long partner is somewhere far back on the intentions list and deeply obscured.

The ego boost component is curious. For those who haven’t used a dating app (and they are few and far between), dating app gamification, one might wonder: how can the humble dating app offer such a mood enhancement?

Especially given there used to be a stigma around dating app users (i.e. you couldn’t find a date 'In Real Life', and hence were clearly defective).

No longer, it would seem. The ego boost has everything to do with the feeling of being desired, which might be less forthcoming IRL.

Alongside this, people go through the emotions. They ride the rollercoaster, and there is something addictive about that pattern.

People experience elation, conflict, anger, sadness, they go cold turkey and then have relapses—the return to the dreaded app.

How exactly does it work? Well, just as you might have a mood boost in a cheeky flirtatious and flattering chat, you might be thrown into the deep dark depths of emotional purgatory when someone doesn’t respond, or is overly direct in their rebuff of your (somewhat) discrete advances.

Trapped in Dante’s Inferno, you might experience conflict towards yourself, relationships and the app, deciding it’s useless and the absolute anti-Christ and removing it altogether from your phone, dating app gamification.

Weeks later, and perhaps less mentally unhinged (and more hopeful of relationship bliss), you might choose to re-install it.

These are all behaviours, as identified by Raian Ali, of behavioural addiction: mood modification, conflict, relapse, dating app gamification, tolerance and salience. The World Health Organisation has recently recognised gaming disorder—and you might be experiencing a gaming disorder at this very moment, dating app gamification, courtesy of your much loved (and sometimes abhorred) dating app of choice.

How do dating apps use gamification components? Let’s examine Tinder, the behemoth that first brought swipe-right, dating app gamification, swipe-left into our common parlance.

Swiping in particular can be viewed as a powerful technique. It’s a habit-forming feature that's been coined the “infinite swipe”, dating app gamification.

WATCH: 9Honey's Sticky Situations panel tackles a tricky relationships question, dating app gamification. (Post continues.)

Research conducted in the UK by JigTalk found nearly a third of dating app users spent seven hours per week locked in an “infinite swipe” loop, dating app gamification, and 14 per cent spent over 14 hours.

This produces a sense of “false productivity”—that you’re actively doing something to find a match, but in reality you’re stuck in the swiping. It also creates a “fantasy” landscape.

While we swipe, swipe, swiping, we’re fantasising about what could be with no real intent for a tangible outcome (in this case, a date).

Christ! You might be stuck in the infinite swipe.

Other dating apps, such as Coffee Meets Bagel, are more overt in their inclusion of gamification elements. At noon each day you’ll receive a series of matches. However, to connect with someone you haven’t been matched with, you’ll need to cough up a few extra 'beans'.

You can gain extra beans by making “microtransactions”, dating app gamification, for example following the app on social media. While you might opt to be tight with your beans, participation on the app becomes more difficult and less fruitful.

So while you’re ever hopeful of meeting your significant other (or looking for the odd mood elevator), in reality you’re trapped in relationship gamification.

Research from dating app competitor Hinge indicates 81 per cent of users have not found a long-term relationship on a swiping app. Seems a significant figure—and yet the online dating mirage still seems within arms length.

We all know someone who knows someone else who met on a dating app and have been together ever since. True? Or urban dating myth?

Lisa Portolan is a writer from Sydney whose latest book, Happy As, was released in 2018. She is a dating app anthropologist and is currently conducting a PhD at Western Sydney University on how dating apps have changed the way relationships are instigated, facilitated and navigated.

Nice biceps? Swipe right.

Cringeworthy strange dating sites Left.

Funny bio? Right, dating app gamification. We matched!

As we swipe through a series of profiles on Tinder like it’s a deck of cards, dating app gamification, it can almost feel like a game of how to optimize our profiles to collect the most matches and maybe get a date every once in a while.

With TV shows like “The Bachelor” and popular dating apps like Tinder that make a game out of love weaving their way into the fabric of romantic and pop culture, it begs the question, what does this mean for the single people of the world?

Gamification takes typical elements from games, game-like attributes and ideas from game-playing, and puts them into practice in areas other than entertainment. “The idea [of gaming] is how can we solve some sort of problem or bring attention to something by making it a game so that people are more interested,” says Genelle Belmas, an associate professor in the journalism school at the University of Kansas who teaches the dating app gamification “Gamification in the Professions.”

Gamification has become commonplace in many aspects of our daily lives, whether it’s collecting holes on a punch card for the number of drinks we order, or it's the number of followers we have on Instagram, or even how we learned long division in grade school. 

Jonathan Badeen, the co-founder of Tinder who invented the swiping format, noted in HBO’s documentary “Swiped”that he was inspired by a psychological study by B.F. Skinner where pigeons were trained to gamble. In this study, pigeons were randomly offered food following their pecking. This caused the pigeons to peck often in hope of receiving food, dating app gamification, but the two were not actually dependent on each other.

Like pigeons pecking for food, there is no guarantee that using the same apps over and over again can result in a relationship. As more and more people test out their chances of love online, millennials spend an average of 10 hours a week on dating apps, according to a study done byBadoo.com

Alison David, a matchmaker and COO atMidwest Matchmaking, thinks it's good to put yourself out there and date online. As a matchmaking service, her company helps find and match single individuals in person.

However, David also says that online dating has had an effect on how everyone dates. “We are living in an age where ghosting is considered socially acceptable, and people dismiss a person for not responding to a text fast enough,” David says. “I feel online dating has created an approach of ‘the grass is always greener,’ where you can meet someone new within an hour of hopping on Tinder, if you wish.” 

But the same question remains: is the gamification of love bad for relationships? There isn’t a clear answer.

“There is a reason why boutique matchmaking agencies like us have seen tremendous growth the last few years, dating app gamification, especially among young professionals,” David says. “Singles who choose a matchmaker usually do so because they are not wanting to use online dating a guy a few months younger sites. Either they desire a more dating app gamification approach to finding a partner, or they have tried online dating app gamification do not like it.”

In 2017, 39% of U.S. heterosexual relationships and 65% of same-sex relationships began online, according to a study fromStanford University. It’s clear that these apps aren’t going anywhere. 

“For heterosexual folks, it has not been as dramatic of a shift for how courtship has happened, but its been a very important for sexual minority individuals,” says Jeffrey Hall, a communications studies professor at the University who focuses on relationships and social interactions.

The long-term effects of gamification still aren’t widely studied, Belmas says. However, Hall says the idea that online dating is ruining a generation is not likely. “I just don’t think there is evidence to support that,” Hall says. “I would add that one of the most valuable things that it's added, is access to people who are clear about their intentions of relationships.” 

It is clear that young adults have responded well to dating apps, regardless of the effect it’s had on dating culture. According to aPew Research Center survey, 48% of 18 to 29-year-olds in the U.S. have used an online dating app gamification app or website.

“Now, you have a whole range of tools to access people in ways that you dating app gamification in the past. So, I tend to be skeptical of any argument that says young adults can’t talk to people face-to-face because they have to use Tinder,” Hall says.

The 'gamification' of dating apps is damaging singleton's chances of spotting the right match for them, a psychiatrist has warned.  

Swiping through endless faces on apps like Tinder and Bumble, known as 'infinite swipe', 

The practice has become so addictive that more than one in 10 users swipe for over 14 hours a week, a survey backing up the claims has revealed.

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Research has found that nearly 30 per cent of dating app users are spending over seven hours per week trying to find a match, dating app gamification, and 14 per cent swipe for over 14 hours, dating app gamification, encouraged by a phenomena known as 'infinite swipe' that sees users swiping through endless faces on the app

The rise of dating apps has given rise to a new user phenomenon: the 'infinite swipe.  

Just as other tech platforms such as Facebook and Google have adopted the persuasive design feature of infinite scroll, to engage the user in habit forming experiences, dating apps have leveraged the power of the 'infinite swipe'.

Users are 'nudged" to process the face of a potential match in less than a second, with little or no context on the person's personality.

'Whilst love at first sight can happen in a moment, this gamification of such an important life search dating app gamification potentially demeaning to all,' said Dr Richard Graham, dating app gamification, clinical director of Good Thinking, a London digital mental well-being service.

'It's time we placed more importance on taking time to get to know someone, on personality and conversation, rather than basing decisions on looks alone. 

'Would you just choose the person who can take a great selfie?'

Alex Durrant, dating app gamification, CEO of JigTalk which commissioned the research, and hides users' faces until they have engaged substantially in conversation with matches, says he is releasing the figures to highlight the growing dependency on rating partners by looks alone

A survey of 1,000 dating app users in the UK has found that that nearly a third (30 per cent) spending more seven hours per week trying to dating app gamification a match and 14 per cent swipe for over 14 hours. 

Men were found to be more promiscuous with dating apps than women, with nearly half (40 per cent) using three or more apps at a time. One in ten men admitted to using more than five dating apps at the same time.

Men also spend more time trying to find a date than their opposite sex, with one third (34 per dating app gamification swiping for over an hour each day compared with just a quarter of women (27 per cent). 

Forty per cent of men use three or more apps at a time, with one in ten using more than five to find a date.

Despite 76 per cent of users matching with dating app gamification 30 people each month, only 22 per cent have had more than 10 conversations. 

A quarter of women revealed they hadn't been on a single date in the past six months.

While 26 per cent of men questioned admitted to swiping right, for a 'yes' on more than half of the users they came across, only nine per cent of women swiped right, or 'no', dating app gamification, to more than half of their options.

The research also found that males and females have different opinions on the key traits they look for in a partner. 

Men rated looks as the most important factor in a match, followed by sense of humour and conversational skills, while women rated a sense of humour as the most important, followed by conversational skills, looks and height. 

The survey was commissioned by Alex Durrant, CEO of JigTalk, a dating app that aims to put 'personality' rather than 'looks' at the forefront of online dating.

JigTalk says it tries to encourage conversation by initially hiding a users' face, before  revealing it like pieces of a puzzle the more users talk to each other. 

JigTalkers have to send eight messages each to completely unveil their match's face.

Mr Durrant, said: 'Dating apps have led to hundreds of thousands of marriages and partnerships across the world, but we must use them as messaging platforms to make conversations on, rather than just photo sharing apps.

'Getting to know a potential partner's dating app gamification is key to finding love. It's an innate need which goes hand in hand with visual attraction. 

'You wouldn't meet someone in a bar and not talk to them, so it's crazy why we do this on dating apps.'

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