From Hookups to Hard Launches: Love in the Digital Age Winter 2025​
.png)
Tinder, Hinge, and the Trenches of Dating Apps
By Chanel Champagnie
Interviewee Bios: Andrew A. is a first year and Abe S. is a junior at the University of Michigan.
In the digital age, online dating has become increasingly popular. You or someone you know has been in the trenches of Hinge, Bumble, or the forsaken Tinder. The modern age cannot escape the clutches of online dating, especially at UMich. Naturally meeting people on campus seems like a thing of the past. But why is that? Has COVID deteriorated our social lives so much that we need a screen as a buffer? Why can't we just talk to each other?
After interviewing some people on campus, I've gotten various perspectives on the online dating epidemic. I asked my interviewees if they had ever used dating apps on campus and how they felt about it.
"I didn't use them because I felt as if I would've been giving up on meeting someone in person…" Andrew A. said.
"I have met a few interesting people on dating apps, but for the most part, the conversations that spark are temporary…dating apps are very hit or miss but mostly misses." Abe S. said.
According to the Michigan Daily's 2024 Sex Survey, UMich students who use dating apps are more likely to use the apps with the purpose of searching for an isolated sexual encounter or casual relationship. It seems the main perpetrator for this is the prevalence of hookup culture in the modern dating scene. Right now, it's more common to have friends with benefits, situationships, or the "I like you, but I'm just not ready for commitment" type of relationship than ever before. No shame, but it's increasingly more challenging to truly find someone to date rather than to just bump uglies with; wanting companionship without dedication to an actual relationship. The struggle for companionship can also increase the number of dating app users because of the social pressure to be with someone, especially with the influence of social media. Think of Valentine's Day and everyone launching their partners or going on dates with their “not-so-sneaky” link. Being overwhelmed by relationships on social media can push people to use these dating apps for any semblance of companionship, even if it is surface-level.
The superficiality of dating apps is a massive problem with modern dating. It is increasingly prevalent that men will send shirtless pictures, or the dreaded nude, as an opener to hook you in—an instant red flag. There are already too many red flags within the online dating space nowadays. First, putting your preferences for your partner in your bio, such as "only blondes" or "swipe left if you're under six feet," is clearly a red flag. Having preferences is completely fine, but you can swipe either yes or no; that's the whole point of the app. You don't HAVE to scream your preferences from the hilltop when you can't find your match. If you don't like blondes or men under six feet, don't swipe right on them; send them to me instead! I love short kings.
Second: talking terribly about yourself right off the bat. People say things like "I'm so toxic" or "I'm so ugly, I can't believe we matched". If your first opener includes self-degradation, you're probably not getting a date. It's immediately counterintuitive to project the worst version of yourself in any context, especially to a romantic interest. It is harsh, but if you don't even like yourself, why would anyone else?
Last but not least: not taking no for an answer. If someone says no, it means no, and not understanding that is an immediate red flag. This also applies to every gender on dating apps, not only men. If someone tells you it isn't going to work, leave with pride. Don't say, "but I'm 5' 9, and those are two different measurements," or "I'm actually the most amazing person ever, and you're fat and ugly anyway." Have some class – some decorum, even.
Now, dating apps seem like a cesspool, and some may say you should never use them, but I wouldn't go that far. Sometimes, dating apps can be helpful. There are many success stories on dating apps; it is just that in our current climate, you may need to kiss some frogs before you can find your prince, so to speak. Not to sound like your mom shouting at you to get off the 'damn phone', maybe just pull away from the screens for a bit and try socializing without the buffer of an app. Perhaps it'll incentivize you to make real-world connections or even realize that the "send pics" opener is unsuccessful for a reason! Who knows, maybe you'll actually talk to that campus crush you've been online stalking or that cute guy in your writing class that you haven't dared to make eye contact with yet. And maybe, just maybe, dating at UMich will be even an iota less depressing if we just all talked to each other.
​​​​
​​
Is Social Media Hindering Modern-Day Romance?
By Megan DeGrand and Andriy Kolenov
​
Your opening line on a dating app is your very first impression of a person, so out of all the words in the English language and of all the ways to talk to a woman, why would you choose to say: “I need a muzzle the way I’m barking.”
This unique opening line is brought to you by Tinder Tuesday from the Instagram page @michiganchicks. Every few weeks, this page collects the best first messages from Tinder users at the University of Michigan and allows the masses to giggle or judge them. While some may be halfway creative or witty, they all carry a sense of unseriousness or insincerity. It makes one wonder: What is the goal of cold opens like these?
Online dating has truly transformed how people find romantic relationships. It gives singles access to a wider range of people and allows them to narrow their pool via specific dating preferences and filters. These apps also afford users an increased level of choice and control in finding potential dates. At the same time, Tinder and other apps have gamified relationships.
Meeting people and “getting to know them” has been accelerated thanks to the curation of general profiles and bios. According to research by Laura Thompson at the University of London, this acceleration has turned dating apps into a sort of marketplace, suggesting that these attitudes are rooted in patriarchal ideals of feminine beauty and sexuality. These attitudes suggest that much of a woman’s value is placed on her sexual attractiveness in exchange for a man’s social resources such as wealth and status in heterosexual relationships. Men, however, are also susceptible to sexualizing their profiles or themselves, with shirtless pictures of them cradling fish in their hands on expensive boats and gym pictures where they flex the finest of their assets.
Pressure to build the most appealing profile may then create a “competitive market,” which can impact the mental health of dating app users. To grab someone’s attention in a competitive market, people will look for photos that best fit their culture’s beauty standard, whether the picture represents them accurately or not. A study by Emily Malz at the University of Twente notes that the pressure to present oneself in a certain way can lead people to feel discontent with their bodies and compare themselves with the appearances of others.
This idea can be extrapolated through another Michigan-centric account, run by a man named Joseph Kim (@josephgskim), who asks strangers to rate each other on a scale of 1-10, solely based on attractiveness in the hope of setting them up on a date. The use of social media in this manner emphasizes the superficial importance of attractiveness over all else. With the focus on sexual attraction and appearance, sending depersonalized and sexual messages acts as a way to relieve the pressure of dating, and yet enforce vanity and sexualization online.
According to a study done at McLean Hospital on the impact of social media and mental health, platforms like Instagram and TikTok can be associated with anxiety, depression, and physical ailments designed to be addictive via instant releases of dopamine in our brains. The same study has demonstrated this effect by assigning students into two groups: the first was asked to limit their use of Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat to ten minutes per platform per day, while the second was instructed to keep using their apps as normal. Somewhat unsurprisingly, the limited group showed significant reductions in loneliness and depression. Further, one would be mistaken to assume adults are immune. The study detailed that parents' use of mobile devices contributed to distracted parenting, causing potential harm to the upbringing of children. Moreover, social media networks can increase feelings of FOMO (fear of missing out) for many young people.
There is a difference between meeting people online and physically in line, say for a movie. Intuitively, one might reason that having access to dozens of the other person’s pictures would paint a clearer picture of the person. In truth, these pictures only serve to obscure their real self. Social media platforms are complicit in turning the dating scene into a competitive “beauty market”. Your humanity is condensed down to a number of likes, or a simple “swipe left” or “swipe right”. At the end of the day, no amount of rose-colored posts could ever replace knowing your potential partner in real life.
​
The Quiet Struggle to Connect on Campus
By Jack Connolly and Molly Meyers
​
Interviewee Bios: Luka Crowe ’27 is a sophomore at the University of Michigan pursuing a degree in economics. A transfer student from George Washington University, Luka is a member of the Alexander Hamilton Society and the Risk Management Chair for Chi Phi fraternity.
Tucker Rook ’27 is a sophomore at the University of Michigan pursuing a degree in communications. A transfer student from Clemson University, Tucker is a broadcaster for WCBN sports broadcasting and the President of Chi Phi fraternity.
Alexander Meier ‘25 is a senior at the University of Michigan pursuing a degree in microbiology. He is involved in infectious disease research and serves as a volunteer and assistant for introductory biology courses.
​
Walking around campus alone can be an isolating experience. Coming back from your last commitment of the day to an empty apartment with no plans for the evening can be painfully familiar, even on a campus such as Michigan, which offers many opportunities to connect. People are more lonely than ever: Almost 65% of college students reported feeling lonely, which can lead to an increased risk of heart disease and depression. Introverted or extroverted, feeling alone in the world just plain sucks. So why is it so hard to make friends?
The awkward silence of elevators can be surreal. It’s common to count down floor after floor, endlessly waiting for the doors to open—the tense, heavy air of the elevator finally releasing on the first floor. Nobody is silent: the mumbled "thank you" offered for a held door confirms this. But the lack of a "hi" or a nod is odd, if not outright uncomfortable. These uneasy silences can extend beyond elevators and hallways to classrooms. Luka Crowe '27 commented on the quiet and disconnected feelings of some of his morning classes, saying, "Sometimes … my professor will say, 'turn and talk to the person next to you,' but sometimes I'm just so tired … me and the other guy, we just sit next to each other and don't say anything for like a minute." Luka's story is not uncommon. To many, the idea of "just saying hi" can be stressful and almost physically tricky. But at the same time, it isn't universal. We are not entirely antisocial. Tucker Rook, '27, says that he finds it most straightforward to approach people he doesn't know in his classes, saying, "I've made a good amount of friends in my classes, and when you're seeing the same individuals, and you have the same assignments, it gives you an easy conversation starter."
Having a shared interest can make meeting people much more manageable. Luka finds clubs among the more inviting spaces to meet people on campus, saying, "The environments that are fostered at the very beginning of a semester are usually way easier to meet new people in." Clubs offer an unpretentious place to meet people, given the social nature of their events and group members' shared passions and interests. However, Michigan's uber-competitive club culture can turn these clubs into environments whose competitiveness can outweigh their social benefit.
When academic competition is intense, especially at Michigan, students often focus more on career development rather than building genuine connections. Conversations are transactional: group projects, clubs, or networking events. For past generations, college was where you made lifelong friendships. Today, with so much emphasis on personal success, many students may find social connections to be a burden – or even a threat.
For freshmen arriving on campus, first conversations are often dominated by comparison. Alex Meier '25 describes one of his first interactions in his dorm as setting a precedent for how he navigated future social encounters. On his first night in Bursley, he noted, "We all sat down together and started contrasting our standardized test scores, or where else we were admitted to." He continued, "Everyone was trying to one-up the other… like, oh, you got a 33 on your ACT, that's pretty good; I got a 35, though, which seems more within the range of this university's standards". For a student fresh out of high school — likely accustomed to being at the top of their class — the sudden realization that thousands of equally high-achieving peers now surround them can be disorienting – or even frightening.
​
Over time, the constant underlying comparisons perceived within social interactions can lead to burnout or disengagement, as students feel alone despite being surrounded by peers. As a result, students may hesitate to initiate conversations with one another, fearing judgment rather than expecting understanding. This continuous cycle can make social interactions seem more like subtle competitions rather than opportunities for connection, as students measure their worth against each other instead of taking the time to appreciate their company.
​
The Growing Resentment of The Dating App
By Jackson Coates and Ruoning Fang
​
Interviewee Bios: Brandon Comer is a first-year undergraduate student at the University of Michigan. He is studying biology and data science in the College of Literature, Science, and Arts. Aden Rapanos is a first-year undergraduate student at the University of Michigan. He is majoring in international studies in the College of Literature, Science, and Arts.
​
Online dating took the world by storm in the early 2010s as people flocked to dating apps looking for an easier solution to dating. In the present day, however, the perception of dating apps has changed drastically. Nowadays, with dating apps carrying a stigma around hookup culture, many have stopped using them for their original purpose: actual dating.
After talking to students around campus, the general perception of online dating seems highly negative. We asked students about their thoughts regarding online dating, and nearly every person said that online dating was used for hookups and not actual dating. One anonymous interviewee said, "The stigma for me is that people often look for something casual or give off the vibe that it's stupid to seek a serious relationship on a dating app. I agree that this might be somewhat true, but the way some people dismiss seriousness as nothing on these platforms feels very judgmental, and that's a huge no for me.”
When conducting interviews, one statement stood out clearly and eloquently to us: "Students here use dating apps for fun, to mess around with people, but they don't actually look for a real date. It just feels too stupid to take an app seriously when it's already so stigmatized." Because of these stigmas, those who use dating apps often face social judgment, being labeled as people who are just "playing around" or only looking for hookups.
Besides the hookup culture surrounding dating apps, the sincerity of relationships found online was called into question as well. Aden Rapanos, an undergraduate student, told us, "I think online relationships or relationships that come from online are less real," and Brandon Comer, an undergraduate student, went so far as to say, "That it's not real love." These powerful statements show a growing resentment towards online dating in the modern age. People are done with the novelty of online dating and wish to escape the hookup culture surrounding them.
Brandon Comer said he would never actually date anybody from a dating app and instead prefers to meet people around campus. However, many people struggle with in-person social interactions and find it hard to meet potential partners through this method. Because of this struggle, these people turned to online networks - but that failed as well. In this way, dating apps are mocked for their unserious nature, but at the same time, they create immense pressure for those who genuinely hope to find a relationship.
Based on our interviews, relationships are more likely to develop in the real world than online. However, an anonymous interviewee successfully built a relationship with her girlfriend through a dating app, and they are now happily in their second year together. Both believe that a significant turning point in their relationship was when she ran into her future girlfriend at the Target checkout, recognized the girlfriend’s dog from one of her profile pictures on the app, and asked, "Is that Jay?" - which sparked a whole conversation. "I don't think we would have come this far if we hadn't met in person," she admitted. She reflected on their past chats before they met in real life, noting that although they had been matched for a while, they had barely talked.
Initiating conversations with a stranger on a dating app requires plenty of courage and can often trigger social anxiety and self-consciousness. When you don't know who the person on the other end of the screen is, you might unconsciously try to fit into a specific mold that may not truly reflect who you are. You may not necessarily lie, but you instinctively adjust certain aspects of yourself to appear more favorable. There are many dimensions to a person; deciding which one to present to someone you've never met takes a lot of mental energy. This self-modification demands far more effort than simply being yourself in front of someone in real life. In the end, meeting face-to-face feels like a more trustworthy and natural way to start a relationship.
The common stigmas of people not taking dating apps seriously or not getting quality relationships out of dating apps are pushing more and more people away from dating apps. Even people who had not seen success after matching online found that they were much more compatible after meeting each other in person. This signals that a shift away from dating apps is likely for many of the younger generations seeking serious relationships. Instead, people seeking these relationships can look to the people they interact with every day for a potential match, which will hopefully encourage more in-person interaction in an age dominated by social media.