This interview was set up with a user of online dating, with the intention of looking at how these sites break down a persons personality in order to match them with other people, and whether their methods are effective. The idea is to see if theres room for a more effective way of 'decomposing' a personality to match similar people together.
Q- What dating sites / apps have you used and were they free?
A- Match.com which you have to pay monthly for, and Tinder which is a free app.
Q- Starting with 'Match.com' can you explain how they go about matching you to other people?
A- You fill in a sort of questionnaire which asks your age, what you do for a living, hobbies, your idea of a good night in and night out, your perfect holiday, 3 or 4 words to describe yourself, and you also write a short profile and upload a couple of photos. Although if you're just signed up for the simplest account this is all you do and you then have to trawl through everyone else's profiles to try and find someone you like - it wont give you matches unless you pay to be on the next level! So it can be quite time consuming and tedious reading through all these profiles. On the other hand with 'tinder' it's instant and you can swipe through a person a second, but it's all based on looks which is a pretty ineffective way of doing things, and i've had some friends who have been on some pretty awful dates with people they have nothing in common with!
Q- What are the biggest drawbacks to both applications?
A- For 'Match.com' it is definitely the time and tediousness of it, in the end I basically just went from the photos anyway because it was quicker! For 'tinder' it's the complete lack of information; just a photo, which you don't know how real it is anyway!
Q- What about the positives?
A- Well obviously 'Match.com' has the information there if you want to try and get to know a person a bit more before contacting them, so the chance of meeting someone you actually like is better. With 'tinder' its just so easy and addictive and more lighthearted really, it turns it into a bit of a game, and I know some people who like that they don't really know what they're going to get when they meet a person from there.
Q- How would you feel about using a dating site that didn't use any images of the person, but instead focused completely on their personality, perhaps with an image made up of objects that represent them?
A- I think thats an interesting idea and I like how its a kind of up-yours to the selfie movement where everyone is obsessed with their image. I think it might make some people nervous about meeting up because you wouldn't know what to expect, but I suppose thats no different to 'Tinder', its just a different aspect of a person that you would have information on. I like the idea of using images for a different purpose though because I think we're quite an image focused society and perhaps find images easier to process, rather than a list of attributes. I think it could work really well in a 'Tinder' style format where you just swipe through photos and choose the ones you like to be matched with, it would be interesting to see what sort of objects people choose too! And also fun to make your own picture.
Q- Have you been on many successful dates from either sites?
A- I would say i've probably been on a few more dates from 'tinder' but not really had any that I would call 'successful'! I have had a few good ones from 'Match' though, so I think it shows that personality matching is probably more effective.
This is gooood! The idea of swiping through the images like tinder is interesting!
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