Giulia Ranzini: What do we choose to share about ourselves and about the way we look on dating apps?

My name is Dortje Smithhuizen and in this podcast I will be investigating Aesthetic Capital because next to well the more known forms of capital like social capital and cultural capital there's also something that is called aasthetic capital and it's sort of well it it captures the way we look and the way these looks sort of define our class and our chances in society and well due to the rise of social media and the increased visibility of our physical appearance, this Aesthetic Capital is becoming increasingly determined for our social opportunities, so therefore I would really like to investigate this form of capital with all kinds of researchers, some are from the view, some are from different areas of this society, and together in this podcast we will sort of investigate what is this Aesthetic Capital and how does it shape our society today? we are recording again, so welcome everyone. on to the second recordings of this connected world podcast, very nice to see you all again, and I am joined here by Giulia Ranzini. Am I pronouncing your name correctly? Thank you, well, you are mostly, you are an economist by study, but you are right now mostly a researcher in the sort of domains of social media, and especially on dating apps, this is why I invited you here also, because well, I'm really curious when we look at Aesthetic Capital and the way it shapes our individual lifes and the way it shapes our whole societies, how does this sort of, how does does this sort of have effect on the way we date, and I do feel like dating apps are a very clear way to see this, how are we behaving on these apps, what are our preferences, what do we not like to see? so yeah, I'm very curious to dive into this with you, okay, and firstly, I'm just, I'm just also very curious to know how did you come up with this research subject? well, so basically, I've always had an interest in the well, there are two different parts of this answer, actually, one part is that I am an economist and therefore I'm really interested in choices, I'm really interested. in both how people make choices and what kind of motivations, what kind of incentives can be thought for certain choices and that's the rational part, then there's the less rational part and that has to do with the fact that I'm since basically going through my studies, I've been really fascinated in how people represent themselves, so what kind of information do they put out about themselves, how do they see themselves in front of these imaginary or real stick audience that social media in particular gives them. dating apps have sort of blended these two layers because on the one hand there's the idea that people don't don't always don't only represent themselves in terms of how many likes can I get how many followers can I get but have an objective and the objective is whatever objective they have for being on a dating app. but also there is a choice on the other hand there is a choice of this person over this other person. so the this be at the moment I thought that research could be done on this, I thought it was kind of like people making choices based up on representation so it's your both you're both interest in one actually yeah and and when you look at these apps I mean this is a very broad question I'm aware but how did it change the way we date well did it change the way we date which is another interesting question so there are many many ways in which you could answer this from the super academic to the very you know down to earth yeah something that I like to focus on is and we are a little bit obsessed with this as communication scholar but how the structure influences the behavior right so think about it before dating apps we had dating websites only a few people went there the common conception was that if you couldn't find someone going out at a bar then you would have a few other options and then another few other options but it was quite a desperate option to go to was the general perception but a dating website worked in a way the very specific way basically it was sort of a match maker it would collect a ton of information ask a lot of questions push it through the complex matching algorithms of okay cupid and then there were pictures yeah and then when you move on to Tinder or to even worse Grinder but then Bumble and happen and all of the variations oh my god I cannot keep up with all these diff slightly different thanfully I don't have to which is amazing but but this basically revolutionizes the picture, so it's not just anymore about the written information, it's not about an algorithm that puts people together, in some ways you do all the work because one, I log on on on Tinder and I do all the work of selecting, but the primary source of decision making is a picture or several pictures and what can be communicated through that, yeah. so that this is one of the changes that I think we can we can think of yeah it's true before if you think of an interaction of two people meeting each other for the first time before of course there was a lot of visual information that came through but it was probably matched by other types of information and like a dialogue that starts well but I mean I do feel like it's such a different way of meeting new people when you look at exactly when you meet someone in a bar, like while I'm saying this, it's like still meets someone in a bar, but some people do, and and a lot of people did probably, but also through work or studies or whatever, and of course when you meet someone in that way, there is a lot of information that is by no means visual or in in what other way measurable on a dating app, because when you meet someone you already see the way they move, you hear their voice, you hear what they say, you see the who they are surrounded with, and of course on a dating app all you have is this picture, and I'm wondering, what does this do to people, what do they want out of this picture? not just that, but all you have is what they give you, and so there's a much, I think a much wider space for self-construction right, for building a character somehow. then whether people do it or not, it's a different story, but yeah, I mean, there's also another thing that you basically touched upon that I think is really interesting, is imagine really meeting someone, okay, the bar is a little bit of an anonymous situation, but imagine meeting someone at a concert, that's context, right, that's something that you already have in common certain days exactly, on a dating up, it's a blank canvas, well and also what I think is a... very big difference is that on a dating app people know that they will be seen as a potential partner because in in or maybe you're looking for sex or whatever but you are looking for a mate in a broad sense and of course when you go to a concert and you meet someone there you were not planning on that so that is also I mean you get to plan out the way people see you and do you have a feeling like how how does this affect people or the way they represent themselves? I don't actually, you know, what is interesting is that yes, we have 10, 15 years of this, more or less, what we don't have yet is an answer of how this affects relationships, so I'm answering by not answering, but the truth is that I don't know that, like I can't tell you how I don't know whether marriages that have come out of a Bumble encounter last longer or what not, what we know is mixed mixed evidence on. what kind of people these apps bring together? okay, so something that I found really fascinating and the reason why I insisted on studying this is that there is starts being data from the US, and something that is quite noticeable in the US is that the amount of mixed, what they call mixed marriages, so marriages of people from different ethnicities, different religions, different education levels, these are the things that they mostly observe, are increasing year by year, yeah, well no, that's an hypothesis that done, and the hypothesis is exactly a little bit what I was telling you, so the idea that before people were like, yeah, we met in church, and therefore, and therefore, you know, chunk of your identity covered, and now it's no longer that way, plus you know the dating app is a little bit of a private world, so you don't have your mom saying, yeah, but he is he catholic, and so and so in that could be one of the ways in which things are going that people do get this wild card thrown in and when it comes to like well people they they put themselves up on a dating app well in in a sense sort of hoping to be picked or something hoping to be likeed by someone are there certain things that people want to sort of emphasize about themselves visually that you see that are sort of object that you can see as sort of objectively. seen as attractive or there is a code, I think which connects to the previous episode, there are quees that people are dropping that I think communicate are meant to be read as something that speaks of them and speaks of them, sure they are on a dating, well obviously people differ, also we have to always keep that into consideration, but on in in general, I think that especially on a dating app there is an ideal audience in mind, so I don't think anyone is on a dating app just to be picked, they are they are to be picked by someone, right? so they are talking to that someone, so you create sort of visual codes in order to attract a certain. I think that these dialogue is always happening even if it's happening just in people's minds and so I didn't personally do research into this but there is research that has looked into a sort of topoy like in literature the guy with the dog yeah the guy with the fish not in all cultures the the outdoor c- type and that is these are very small visual information that is however communicating something about a person's identity or how they wish to be seen, yeah, yeah, and it's what I mean, can you say that certain sort of maybe classes of society or certain types of people tend to profile themselves in a very specific way? well, I think that there it's a little there are, I don't actually know that we are that advanced, but what I can say for sure is that your people drop hints, pictures of... a travel in Indonesia are a signal of they might want to communicate different things of course they might communicate a sort of open-mindedness but practically they communicate someone who has the means to do so exactly yeah because I do feel like what what we talked about in the episode before this with with Rie Linda about ascetic capital and the way people tend to manifest this is I feel that these dating apps are maybe the the best case study. possible to sort of look at class divisions also, is this something that you recognize as well? I can definitely see how that would happen, yeah, yeah, and are there certain things that you see maybe that tend to sort of manifest, classes on Tinder, class on Tinder, well education is always an expression of, you know, I mean, part of this, and I go back to the structure, because I think that the structure is fundamental, right, because it's it's just... when I identities are pushed into being summarized into answers to questions, I think it's quite remarkable that all of these companies, because they are companies and because they are American companies, have minimized the information that is shared by individuals right, but this minimization however includes a name, which speaks tones, because the spelling of a name already saying a lot, for example, but also people's profession and people's education, these things are. are basically unescapable and they say a lot, yeah, it's very interesting that actually these dating apps are now deciding what are fundamental, you know points on which you decide whether someone is a good partner for you, yeah, and I'm not actually, I'm not really so surprised in the sense that if you look at the research in a dating outside of online dating, like evolutionary type research. one of the trends that have been found most stable in animals and humans and what not is what is called assertative mating so the idea that people pick someone who is similar to them yeah and this generally goes on the usual identity lines that we we know of race age mostly though there are trends that deviate but also really education there are of course all of these the moment there's a degree of modernization in in a society where for example it's not so fundamental there's no fundamental differences in men and women so that women have to marry up to a degree then people go for what's similar yeah and so I can imagine that Tinder has an interest in people showing off where they studied yeah and is this something that are people do people tend to look for themselves on dating apps yeah okay because earlier you said that like what I have well you know the thing is there's always a distinction between I think between the mean and the individual right? the majority of people and I know this because I research this and I put people dutch folks into this choice yeah and they mostly have selected other dutch dutch people born people so the more you look like each other the more likely you are yeah to match to a degree I think so I think that's true for most people if for people who don't have. have that maybe have the interest on on matching with another person on something else, that could be politics, that could be education, in another sense, so not formal education, dating apps offer. this option much more than you know just regular life, yeah, and what I find fascinating is that people do seem to well make themselves more beautiful on a dating app in in in every way possible, does this do do people realize this while looking for a partner through an app or does this sort of affect the way we date or does it even matter that you it matters a lot yeah yes okay yes so first of all there's kind of a tragic trade-off to start with right, because you do want to be as attractive as possible on the app, but there's always the opportunity of an encounter happening, right? that should not prove the other person wrong, it should not present someone who's completely different from the person who was appearing on the app, so that's the limit right, but we do see that there are major differences also in the in how people present themselves consciously, we ask them, are you being honest? year, and the motivations that they have, the longer term the the relationship they want to find, the more they have a vested interest in presenting themselves as authentically as possible, because then it's a real deal, yeah, the less they're interested in that, and research proves that dating apps are, and this is also interesting though, a completely different conversation, dating apps exist and they are used, the Americans say off label a lot, so people use Tinder to get someone to take them out on a drink while they're traveling and tell them about the city, they use Tinder for friendship indirectly, they use Tinder openly to get whatever they can get and then and then sort of narrow their expectations depending on what is available, but what I mean is the more the less the let's say the less less the the fewer the expectations on the relationship the less there's a pressure to be authentic yeah yeah yeah so you don't care if someone turns out to be not really not. not as tall, no, and and you know height is is a typical, but this is so interesting, I was having drinks with a friend of mine, he's quite a bit more bit younger than I am, he's 25, and I was telling him about my new boyfriend, and then his first question really was, how tall is he? that is an interesting point, yeah, and then I said, I mean, well I I I answered, and then I said, this is such a funny question, no one's ever asked me this question when I introduced. a new boyfriend and then he showed me his dating app and well he he's into men and he he showed me that all the guys had their exact height that is absolutely an experience yes this was so dastling to me why is this so interesting again not my field but there is I think that there that's because there is a stigma against short men yeah yeah it and very tall women because of course Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, oh, this, I mean, and this was also a very good example, I've thought that, I mean, like five years ago, I couldn't have imagined someone asking me this question, as a first question, and maybe even asking it, but I do see, or I think that because of all the apps we use, we tend to sort of normalize certain behavior or the way we look at people, the way we sort of judge people. by their looks, yeah, and you know, putting out on a nap, how tall you are, makes it normal to immediately ask about someone's height, yeah, yeah, so this is actually, you know, I mean there's always because I study something that is so frivolous, there's always an academic conversation and an aside conversation, and I consume a lot of internet because I, I mean, and something that I I've listened to recently is a podcast with the journalist saysra klein who has a I don't always agree with, but he had a very interesting point exactly on what you're touching upon, so the fact that maybe media does not affect us in the way we think so that I don't know because we are exposed to a lot of video games then we become violent people, not not so easy to establish, but it kind of gives us a filter right, so if people are on instagram a lot, they will be focusing a lot on what? what kind of angle looks best for a picture, and I think if you're on online dating a lot then that becomes your filter for the rest of the world, so you kind of bring it outside of the mediand into reality, I guess, yeah, and I think that it's a very insightful way of looking at the world, you looking through the dating app, well no, in general, the idea that we become influenced, like if we are exposing ourselves a lot through to dating apps, that's the kind of the view that we bring into the world, so of decisions that we make inside there become ways in which we evaluate also yeah but it also I mean for example there's also being talked about the dating at burnout now because people judge others so much and are being judged so much by others that they tend to actually burn out from their use of the app is this something that you see also in your I have I don't see it in my formal work but I have obviously I speak to people constantly and I talk to my students a lot and these emerges constantly yeah and I think that it's because you know I mean we have formalize something that used to happen quite informally and I imagine if you were to sit at a never ending. speed dating session you will probably also burn out or if your parents combined put you in front of 205 potential boyfriends that would also be exhausting exactly and it's also I mean it's such a vulnerable absolut right to meet someone for the first time to also this is also what's I I think is sort of awkward about dating apps is that well it takes away all the sort of mythical thing about meeting so Yeah, you're you're on there because you want a relationship in what kind of way right, but but you you already have made that step right, you already said like I am looking for someone, yeah, and then for sure exactly like you say it formalizes something that is so informal, but it also sort of creates some sort of code around something that for for, but I always feel like a very old romantic soul I talk about dating apps, but it also... sort of create sort of you know objective codes around something that to me seems very undefinable right? I mean like the first Tinder date is you you can sort of I feel you or you for me I I immediately know when I'm in a cafe or whatever and I'm next to sitting next to a first Tinder date because you recognize the questions and the sort of where did you grow up and it's kind of a job interview isn't it? and I do really sort of question to myself, like what does this do to our love life or to our? I think it depends a lot on, I I mean it's always possible that it doesn't do very much, but what does it do to our to the importance we place on a first encounter, that I I would be curious about, yeah, because I recently did a little bit of study into dating myself for for my the other podcast that I that. I make and I talked to people who went on 40 so 40 first dates in a year yeah not experimentally yeah this was what they did I felt like and they felt quite burned out and I I mean I'm already a little bit burned out thinking about this and and exactly like you say it's sort of because when one thing is off they sort of and this is so this weird sort of balance that indeed you find each other. on a platform on which everyone is sort of idealizing themselves and then you meet each other and then it has to be perfect, yes, yes, yes, these touches upon something that I ponder upon myself on a regular basis and that is, what does this do to are but it's not obviously online dating is not on the only environment in which I think this of this, but like what does it do to our understanding of risk? because relationships are. are inherently risky, they are vulnerable, they, I mean there is a risk of failure, but there's also the risk of having to work a lot to make a relationship work, yeah, yeah, yeah, which is pretty normal, which is quite the reality, yeah, and and I think that you know, because this is so gamified and people are pretty replaceable, then it becomes really, I don't know if it changes the expectations that people have on on their partners or on their experience. of a relationship, but yeah, I think it's it's an interesting question to to consider, well being on a dating up for, and then I mean, before the the meeting of course, there's sort of sort of the judging of the the the first profile picture, I mean, I've seen people swiping through these apps, it takes about, I mean, I feel like a second is even long, yeah, for people to sort of decide whether this might be the father of your children or not, are there certain like? people established certain ways to stand out and make people look at their picture for longer? I don't even know if that is so desirable, it's it's very interesting, so I can give you a bit of statistics, first of all, what patterns in a in a, I mean there are very different patterns for men and women within a heterosexual coupling, very different patterns also. for gay men very different patterns for gay women, lesbians or and and everybody else, but within straight couples or men who look for women, women who look for men women to be extremely selective, men tend to swipe right for more profiles that they are actually interested in, and we've seen this type of difference in strategies everywhere, and it's not something that's you know, prescribed that many men have learned on from some magazine and they've decided this is a good strategy, it tends to be something that people do, and I people have connected it to the way they the different sexes look for partners in general, so women were... being more interested in looking for the perfect partner and men being more interested in having a first idea of who they have achievable, who is their dating market and then making a decision, okay, which is super interesting to start with, yes, but what I observe and cyclically I go back on dating apps just to make sure that I stay updated, because things are change all the time, and I need to make sure that if I guide students through their theses or through whatever work, I need to make sure that they are updated. it's funny because you would imagine that standing out would be an unobjective and yet the the more the longer these apps are around, the more it seems that there's really a language that develops on how profiles should look like, yeah, there is a even a almost a grammatical, a syntax for how texts look like, so much so that a student of mine recently tried to ask Jd GPT to put together a problem. well and it was perfect, oh really, and what is this language then? well, for example, there there are really short sentences with with full full full stops, so father, full stop, adventurer full stop, and it's it's a syntax, you don't see it anywhere else, yeah, yeah, yeah, even the little profiles on instagram or the little profiles on twitter, now this is, don't, don't look like that anymore. It's really specific to dating apps and is this also is there also such a specific code or language when it comes to pictures or the way people make themselves visual visual communication scholars that work on this would argue that this is the truth yeah and what are the coats or the well there is often pictures with other people that communicate that people are social the festival picture the picture with the dog the picture on the beach there are there is a little like there like be basically you could typify an entire instagram, not everybody's instagram, but many people's instagram, you could probably create a typology on, yeah of course, and I mean people are doing it all the time right, well it's interesting because there's also there we identify a trade off, on the one hand, you are recognized as part of this, so indeed you also are a guy with a with a labor or retriever on a festival ground, but on the other hand you're not yourself. like how do does one know? yeah, but this is of course I was listening to a podcast earlier by Halina Rein, she's quite a famous dutch actress and she is single and she's in her late 40s I think and she's then on his dating apps and she described a feeling that I I found very relatable in a way that she said like you know the thing when I when I open this app I already hate everyone who is on there and I sort of hate myself for being on the app yeah. and this is exactly like you say you you are a part of it yeah so probably you know and this also touch upon what what we were speaking about with Trice Linda about like having to look good but not having to look like it was a lot of work right and this is probably the same on a dating app so I feel like people are who are on a dating app are like yeah I'm I'm kind of yeah on a dating up you know and they are swiping all the time but still they want to we're like they're sort of like yeah yeah am I here though you know which you know which brings about the question we discussed that the stigma around this has decreased and it definitely has but has it yeah really yeah yeah yeah I mean a lot of my friends who meet through dating apps they they come up with like fake stories how they met or or they they sort of like they they meet up in a bar and then they say yeah we met in that bar like yeah all right you sort of met in that bar yeah, but why is this stigma you feel? look, I don't know that it's true, so true for every generation at the same time, because I think that, I mean for someone who's maybe 21 right now, this is how everybody else meets, which is a little peculiar because you're never going to have as many connections as you, as you did when you were 21, but but maybe it's considered to be because there is is selling proposition at the bottom of this, yeah, it's still considered to be a little bit like a second choice, a third choice, like what you do if you couldn't find the partner some other way, yeah. well but it's not right, I mean so and this is also what I'm wondering about like and we touched upon this also in the beginning of our conversation when I asked you like how did it change dating and you said did it change dating yeah well it must have changed the way we sort of immediately judge someone on their looks yeah right yeah it must have sort of enhanced this yeah yes I think so. I think so, again, if that is something that people do, because I mean that this is also the thing about online dating and about social media in general, it gives us, users of social media of online dating the feeling that this is the filter that everybody applies, but that's not true, so I wonder if like if this is really the same for everyone, but as you were speaking, there's also some other thing that came to my mind, obviously it changed dating in the sense that for people who could not find the partner before, not because they are rejected or because but maybe because they are the only gay person in their village in southern Italy, this has I mean have being on Grinder has changed things because it has given a perspective of like what else is available, well and I do feel like for example I did a story on field, you probably know this app also, it's sort of like an open-minded, yeah it, I mean it sort of advertises itself that way and I spoke to a guy actually who is who is handicapped, he has a spasm, of course, and for him, I mean, talking about meeting someone in a bar, it's quite hard when you're when you're specstick to have a nice conversation in a bar when you're in a wheelchair and everything, but for him an app like field is great, because he is very, I mean I I talked him to the phone, he's super funny, super charming, so he's like this is the place, the only place for me where I'm only judged. on my charm and not on my handicap sure and this was also quite an eye opener for me when I thought like wow probably your chances of meeting someone yeah that you really like are quite higher but on the other side when I look at my friends for example who are you know swiping their way through life I tend to feel like the chances you will meet someone that you really like right now through this app are only getting smaller and smaller because of the way you you tend to look at people in general, so judgy, yeah, so quick to sort of jump to conclusion, yeah, oh, he's shorter than he said he was, yeah, he's probably just, well, one thing that is definitely interesting is the spielover effect, right, because the moment you reduce the information that people have, then how are you going to judge the entire person, some very silly effect that has also been found quite frequently is the impact of... of mispellings, typos, yeah, oh my god, yes, I do really recognize this also from my friends, but of course that's all that's that's all the information you have, and therefore someone, you would maybe be super tolerant of someone who doesn't speak Dutch as the first language and makes a lot of mistakes, but if you read them and you don't have context, maybe not so much, I know that I judge people who get italian verbs wrong a lot, oh I judge people in in every language, but when it comes to these biases also. I'm curious to know because of course we just talked earlier with Trice Linda also about these biases that for example you know being being skinny or being white is you know in most of our society quite a pro yeah is this the same on dating apps absolutely yeah yeah yeah there's data on yeah especially on on whiteness and this is what I was going to ask you like because you said earlier that that there do seem to be a bit more. more mixing in class, maybe also in race through because we date more through apps or this might be the case, but isn't it also that people tend to have a you know a racial bias swiping through apps? so this is actually interesting and it's something that a PhD student that's working with me is trying to find out so we'll see in a few years hopefully but there are a little bit too opposite effects that are happening of course if you are someone who is interested. dating for example someone from a different culture, I think meeting on Tinder is easier than short off, I don't know inserting yourself in that community through some other way, this is this is the it's easier or it's easier to to to have the to have a let's say a cultural excuse to to have a contact with someone is different from you plus you have all of the cues possible of where another person is from because you have a name you have a a job and you have an education so it's definitely possible. is it the choice that most people make? I don't think so, and and the data that I have collected in the past tends to tends to to confirm this, well there was actually I think vice. did an item on this that that there was this very very rude sort of stat that Asian women were the most popular on Tinder and Asian man were the least popular yeah so work that has been done in online dating prior to Tinder so let's say the beginning of the 2000s try to make it like ancient history you talk about online dating prior to instagram to Tinder what was that? I often tell my students MTV was there, yeah, yeah, yeah, we just watched MTV all day, hoping first to meet someone, anyway, yeah, so in the in a american context, asian men and black women have it the worst, asian men and black women, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they're the the they struggle the most to find partners and there seems to be an internal market that that generates which is based on structural racism, yeah, that's just that's just so sad, actually, it is sad because what other opportunity would you have to actually meet someone without all the sovra structure of I don't know whatever church or or school or or but that doesn't quite do you feel are there any ways to sort of make dating apps more inclusive yes that's actually what my phd student is studying yeah there should be or the thing is how much do you want to manipulate how the choices that people make in the sense that what I strongly suspect and I not not because I'm you know some visionary but we all strongly suspect is that Tinder had or Tinder singling out Tinder all of the dating apps have an interest in showing you more of what you like yeah so probably there is some sort of algorithm underneath that well like every algorithm of course so that's definitely somewhere where where something could be. changed, well because this is like, I do sometimes feel like dating apps could be such a great tool to sort of reshape our whole society, because of course people tend to marry someone that is quite the same as them and then maybe if if we could sort of shake up all these days right, but I mean given exactly, but given the the fact that the definition of same as them is up to the person, and I mean there are also studies that claim that people also match on person. personality and once you match on personality maybe you don't have to match on other things yeah in terms of like the success of a relationship then of course yeah there's there's but they they are looking into ways of sort of creating a different algorithm that might be yeah also keep in mind that these are companies that make money so exactly yeah do they have an interesting so it's paradoxical because this is the type of service where money is made it's complex how money is made. already, but there's an interest in not keep not retaining users, right? because if you're successful as Tinder, people should be out of Tinder as soon as possible and stay out of Tinder, so yeah, yeah, but it's, I mean Tinder in the end wants as many people as possible on Tinder, so this this is, I feel like this is sort of the hoax that it is selling, like it it sells the idea, you will fall in love with the next swipe, and underneath is the reality that. will always feel the satisfied, yeah, I think so, and it's possible that this extends the longer you are on the platform, I think I do really think so, yes, that becomes a and the gamification doesn't help, yeah, I do feel like when I look around in my own social circle that people tend to sort of go on one date through a dating app, fall in love, say wow, it was like, I had one date and it was perfect immediately, or they go on 300. dates yeah, there's no in between, no, no, I can see that, yeah, Giulia, we have to sort of come to a conclusion, I really like talking to could go on for hours, but what do you feel like when you sort of look at your research field, what do you feel like that the the world of dating apps is sort of evolving towards, what, what are the future of dating? okay, so interestingly I started this conversation by saying that from the tones of text we went into the visual kind, so the faces are the center of everything. and paradoxically, and this is again something that one of my students brought up to me, I was unaware, I feel like we're going a little bit in the opposite direction, so there is a little movement that is called slow dating that emerged after the pandemic when people basically had no other option than online dating to meet people, and that you see some of the newer newer platforms have gone back to for example giving prompts to users, so asking them to express themselves a little bit more, and I'm curious if this has the power of... changing something or if we are doomed in a sense, we are we are doomed anyway, fair enough, but I mean this is a this is a different very specific kind of yeah so giving promps in what way like what what? does it, what is the difference with the proms you already give in like adventurous, right? but this is this is completely, so what Tinder does is it leaves everything completely open, so people generally use extremely little text to describe themselves and just add a bunch of pictures, these newer newer types of of dating platforms engage the user to give as much insight as possible into very random things such as I don't know what I do on sunday Sunday morning or this type of very yeah yeah very random prompts that however can save of self presentation do give a little bit of but I'm so curious to know whether people will be more honest because I mean if you would ask me like what do you do on sunday morning yep I don't know I lay in bet and I watch tik tok or something but will I put it up on an app I don't know there might be individual I mean because this is always about attracting a certain audience there might be differences in there as well I'm curious to see if this changes or maybe gen z is like super radically. honest about all these kinds of things good for them, always end with like gency changing everything, I hope so, thank you so much, thank you for being here, thank you everyone for listening and see you next time.