Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with text Stuff from dot
Speaker 1: com either and welcome to text Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland,
Speaker 1: and today I have a special guest host, Alison louder Milk,
Speaker 1: wu's editor extraordinary here in Hell Stuff Works dot Com.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Donathan. I love that introp So
Speaker 1: I'm glad now those of you who have been listening
Speaker 1: to How Stuff Works podcast for a while will recognize
Speaker 1: Allison's voice. She's an old hand at podcasting. Though you've
Speaker 1: taken a nice long hiatus, I have that. It's a
Speaker 1: pleasure to be here today. Yeah, fantastic, And so I
Speaker 1: asked Allison what she would like to talk about. When
Speaker 1: she agreed that, you know, she jump on and be
Speaker 1: a guest. I give my guests the opportunity to pick
Speaker 1: if they want to. And you jokingly suggested an app
Speaker 1: called Cuddler, And while that was a joke, it led
Speaker 1: to the actual choice of this episode, which goes beyond Cuddler.
Speaker 1: But we will talk about that right, right, right, We
Speaker 1: were talking about it in the break room and the
Speaker 1: fascination that was Cuddler. Yeah, yeah, there's kind of a
Speaker 1: horrid fascination for a lot of us here and how
Speaker 1: stuff works. Who have very specific parameters, uh, within which
Speaker 1: we welcome that kind of personal interaction, and when it's
Speaker 1: outside those parameters, we get a little wigged out by it,
Speaker 1: but we'll get there. So we decided we wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about how the Internet has become an incredible tool
Speaker 1: for people to first meet each other in the online
Speaker 1: space or the digital space, and then event eventually transition
Speaker 1: that into meeting in real life. And a lot of
Speaker 1: what we're going to talk about today is focused on dating,
Speaker 1: but that's not exclusively what we're going to talk about.
Speaker 1: But it turns out that's a that's a big part
Speaker 1: and has been a big part of the Internet since
Speaker 1: the Internet became a thing that most of us got
Speaker 1: access to. Yes, do you have any kind of early
Speaker 1: memories of some emails you sent, maybe to a lady
Speaker 1: you were interested in, or well, there's a there's a
Speaker 1: lady that I was very much interested in, a lady
Speaker 1: who I'm still very much interested in because she's my wife.
Speaker 1: I met her in a chat room online, Yeah, a
Speaker 1: tell net chat room, so not even a web based one.
Speaker 1: In fact, when I met my wife, the web was
Speaker 1: new to me, Like I had not even used a browser. Uh.
Speaker 1: I had seen other people on a browser, and I thought, well,
Speaker 1: that looks really interesting. But I was jumping into chat
Speaker 1: rooms just chatting about anything really and she and I
Speaker 1: hit it off, and we ended up, uh, corresponding quite
Speaker 1: a bit, and then we met in person, and then
Speaker 1: we started dating, and then she moved to Georgia, and
Speaker 1: then we got engaged, and then we got married. And
Speaker 1: seventeen years later, here we are so early story of
Speaker 1: using the Internet to do exactly what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: So I have personal experience here, but you know, we've
Speaker 1: seen the people use the Internet for all sorts of
Speaker 1: things along those lines. And here's an interesting statistic I found.
Speaker 1: According to the American National Academy of Sciences, which did
Speaker 1: a survey back in two thousand thirteen, more than thirty
Speaker 1: three of all people who got married in the United
Speaker 1: States between two thousand five and two thousand twelve met
Speaker 1: their spouse online. Yeah. That's a large swath of people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: more than a third of all of all married couples
Speaker 1: first met online, well married couples from two thousand five
Speaker 1: to two thousand and twelve. And that's incredible to me.
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember when I started dating my wife,
Speaker 1: that was considered unusual. Yeah, we all have friends who've
Speaker 1: met online, and I was kind of a novelty back
Speaker 1: in the day. I remember thinking, you know, one of
Speaker 1: my very dear friends met her husband on match dot com,
Speaker 1: and I was a little wary, like, but it's it's
Speaker 1: pretty it's pretty normal now normal if I when when
Speaker 1: more than a third, you know, it's quickly becoming as
Speaker 1: normal as other method of meeting people and getting to
Speaker 1: know someone and dating them. And uh, yeah, for me,
Speaker 1: it was it was outside the norm both because one
Speaker 1: the Internet was so new, and too that I was
Speaker 1: getting a date, so it was multiple outside the norms.
Speaker 1: But uh, I read a CNN article which was not
Speaker 1: entirely helpful because they reported that a survey which was
Speaker 1: unnamed in the article, so that by two thousand nine
Speaker 1: of all same sex couples reported meeting online first, and
Speaker 1: about half of all married couples who met online did
Speaker 1: so through dating sites. So in order for us to
Speaker 1: really talk about it, we're gonna be looking a lot
Speaker 1: at dating sites early on in this episode and what
Speaker 1: they do and how they do it. So across platforms,
Speaker 1: about eleven percent of Internet users have said they've used
Speaker 1: an online dating site, and across cell phone users, about
Speaker 1: seven percent have used a dating app on their phones,
Speaker 1: and it seems like it's going more in that direction,
Speaker 1: although if you look at it from a stock market
Speaker 1: type perspective, it's still the online dating sites that are kicking,
Speaker 1: but in terms of market share and actually making revenue,
Speaker 1: and that that comes from a two thousand thirteen report
Speaker 1: from the Pew Research Internet Project. And what's also interesting
Speaker 1: is that it just continues to get more segmented, right,
Speaker 1: so you have you know, Jonathan, maybe you and I
Speaker 1: were first interested in this, but now it's our parents,
Speaker 1: and now it's more niche markets to oh sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: So we're seeing lots of of services and sites pop
Speaker 1: up that are catering to very specific demographics. Right, So
Speaker 1: you might see one that's catering specifically to uh, to
Speaker 1: the baby boomer boomer generation, or some that are obviously
Speaker 1: based just on the experience, geared towards folks who are
Speaker 1: more in the college age range or uh. You know,
Speaker 1: there are a ton of different variations on this. So there,
Speaker 1: of course some sites that try to be all things
Speaker 1: to all people, and then we're seeing a lot more
Speaker 1: of these that are kind of tailor made for specific demographics.
Speaker 1: It was funny. I was talking to a coworker who
Speaker 1: just signed up her mom last night for I think
Speaker 1: it was called Our World or My World. Her sixty
Speaker 1: three year old mom was like, Hey, can you help
Speaker 1: me get on some of these dating sites? And she said, okay, Mom, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean again, that might sound unusual to us, in
Speaker 1: particular not to put a number to our ages, but
Speaker 1: Alison and I both can remember a time when the
Speaker 1: Internet wasn't really a thing that we access um, So
Speaker 1: it's certainly something that's still there's still elements of it
Speaker 1: that are kind of unusual to us, but it's becoming
Speaker 1: increasingly normal to the younger generations because they grew up
Speaker 1: with this, And you know, why not have this be
Speaker 1: a tool to to meet people and to try and
Speaker 1: match yourself up with people who are sharing the same
Speaker 1: sort of interest that you do and thus potentially find
Speaker 1: someone with whom you're going to be really compatible with.
Speaker 1: You mentioned before that this is a big industry. You know,
Speaker 1: you talked about a lot of how how many people
Speaker 1: on the Internet had used a site, and you mentioned
Speaker 1: that you know, there's there's real money to be made here.
Speaker 1: But let's get to some real figures, right, So there
Speaker 1: is some serious money to be made here. I was
Speaker 1: reading a report from IBIS World looks like some sort
Speaker 1: of industry research type of report at two thousand fourteen,
Speaker 1: and the authors were estimating that it's about a two
Speaker 1: billion dollar market dating services in the US. So that's
Speaker 1: the broader context. And within that, of course, online is
Speaker 1: going to be you know, a slice of that, and
Speaker 1: that slice is about so one point four billion is
Speaker 1: what we're talking about now, and I can only see
Speaker 1: that growing. Yeah, yeah, I agree, And we're seeing it
Speaker 1: grow in interesting ways too. Whereas the desktop online dating
Speaker 1: sites are still very much a thing, we're seeing an
Speaker 1: explosion of this kind of stuff in the mobile space,
Speaker 1: both mobile apps that are tied into an existing online
Speaker 1: dating site and those that are its own experience ends.
Speaker 1: And we'll talk about some of those two. And uh,
Speaker 1: it's not it's not just that's big business, but for
Speaker 1: the consumer, as in the person who's looking for a date,
Speaker 1: it turns out to make sense financially too, right, So
Speaker 1: this is pretty interesting. Um I. And another report um
Speaker 1: from the Topeka Capital Markets that was again like two thousand,
Speaker 1: fourteen or so. Um, they found that it was cheaper. Right,
Speaker 1: So you're paying for your subscription to your online site,
Speaker 1: but what you're looking at, according to this report, is
Speaker 1: about a twenty three dollar tab before you finally wind
Speaker 1: up making a match of your dreams. Yeah, so these
Speaker 1: guys are saying that if you pay your subscription of
Speaker 1: you know, maybe two d or some dollars, you're gonna
Speaker 1: wind up with cost savings, like in a thousands of dollars.
Speaker 1: So so online dating makes sense to your wallet, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it means that what what it means is that
Speaker 1: while you're in pursuit of finding this person who's going
Speaker 1: to compatible with you, you can do a lot of
Speaker 1: that early work online as opposed to meeting people in places,
Speaker 1: going out to take people out to to, you know, whatever,
Speaker 1: a dinner or a movie or whatever, even if everyone's
Speaker 1: paying for their own thing. Obviously, all of that stuff
Speaker 1: starts to mount up, and not every date turns out
Speaker 1: to be a success. Sometimes you realize, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: this person is really nice, but we're not really clicking things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no spark there, and so yeah, I could I
Speaker 1: could definitely see this. I am personally very thankful for
Speaker 1: the money that the Internet has saved me in that sense.
Speaker 1: So looking more closely at what's going on with these
Speaker 1: dating sites, like how they work, you actually have to
Speaker 1: go all the way back to nineteen sixty five. Now,
Speaker 1: clearly I'm not talking about an Internet dating service that
Speaker 1: far back, because that's pre Internet. We're talking arpennet days
Speaker 1: back then. But ninety five was before the era of
Speaker 1: the personal computer. We didn't even have PCs yet. But
Speaker 1: a Harvard undergraduate named Jeff Tar was working on this idea.
Speaker 1: He had come up with a notion. He noticed that
Speaker 1: a lot of other Harvard undergraduate graduates were talking about
Speaker 1: finding it difficult to find a date, like it's just
Speaker 1: hard to go out and meet people that were compatible.
Speaker 1: And he thought, hmm, there are these computer things that
Speaker 1: crunched numbers really well. And he was he was a
Speaker 1: math major, uh, and he he got to work with computers,
Speaker 1: but he didn't really understand programming. At this point, they said,
Speaker 1: you know, there are these computers that are really good
Speaker 1: at number crunching. If we were to reduce the personality,
Speaker 1: uh preferences of people to numbers, then a computer could
Speaker 1: theoretically start matching people who have the most similar responses
Speaker 1: to a survey. So that's why he did. He developed
Speaker 1: a survey, gave it to tons of his classmates, and
Speaker 1: he essentially relied on the second person to create a
Speaker 1: computer program that would match up these were ponses, and
Speaker 1: he rented time on one of the enormous computers at Harvard.
Speaker 1: I think it was like a hundred dollars a day
Speaker 1: or something in order for him to rent the time
Speaker 1: on this machine. It might have even been higher than that,
Speaker 1: but it was a wild success. People loved the idea
Speaker 1: of being able to use a machine to take out
Speaker 1: the guesswork of trying to find that perfect person. In fact,
Speaker 1: there was one report of a young lady who was
Speaker 1: matched up with her ex boyfriend and got back with
Speaker 1: him because the computer told her to. So that we
Speaker 1: started to act like the computer was like the oracle
Speaker 1: and that we must obey the machine. Uh. But you
Speaker 1: know again, it kind of showed a couple of different
Speaker 1: things that showed how people really wanted to find someone
Speaker 1: who was compatible. And it also showed that there was
Speaker 1: this reverence for computers because they were objects a myth
Speaker 1: and legend to most people back in the sixties, they
Speaker 1: didn't have the experience with computers that we do today.
Speaker 1: Once you've gone through a few blue screens of death,
Speaker 1: you realize they're not infallible machines. But at any rate,
Speaker 1: if you flash forward to the nineteen nineties, by then
Speaker 1: you had had some computer dating services uh competing in
Speaker 1: the United States. But now we see the rise of
Speaker 1: the Internet, especially with the World Wide Web. The Internet
Speaker 1: had been around, but the World Wide Web was what
Speaker 1: made it accessible, and uh so you've got those earliest
Speaker 1: days of regular folks getting access to it, and the
Speaker 1: connectivity opened up the opportunity for meeting new people that
Speaker 1: you might never have ever encountered in your life otherwise.
Speaker 1: So we've got an article actually on how Stuffworks dot
Speaker 1: Com about how online dating works. So it'll cover all
Speaker 1: the basics. But if anyone has ever done any browsing
Speaker 1: on an online dating site, you know typically what they're about.
Speaker 1: It's usually you you create a profile, probably include a picture. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: you probably include the best pictures you possibly can to
Speaker 1: present yourself in the best light possible professional head shot.
Speaker 1: Then you are going to fill out a profile that
Speaker 1: includes a lot of your preferences, things that you enjoy
Speaker 1: things that you're you're not into. It might be things,
Speaker 1: yeah I'm a non smoker, that kind of stuff. Political affiliation,
Speaker 1: it could be is, and it really depends upon the site.
Speaker 1: Like some sites, that's true. Also, are you are you
Speaker 1: into pets? Do you like pets? Do you like kids,
Speaker 1: you're not like kids? Do you want to have kids?
Speaker 1: Do you already have kids? These are all the sorts
Speaker 1: of questions that you would put it there, and then
Speaker 1: when you go for a search, then you can say
Speaker 1: which parameters you consider to be the most important, like say, uh,
Speaker 1: they need their age needs to fall within this range,
Speaker 1: or I'm not going to have anything in common with
Speaker 1: this person, or height is a big one. Height is
Speaker 1: a big one. I read that b m I in
Speaker 1: regards to men looking for women was a big factor. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it was around like eighteen point five percent.
Speaker 1: Was one figure sided like they like women with that
Speaker 1: sort of b m I, which is ridiculous. Well, now
Speaker 1: there's a whole other discussion we could have about expectations
Speaker 1: and realism. But at any rate, one of the interesting
Speaker 1: things I found was that we don't necessarily know what
Speaker 1: it is we're looking for when we're looking for it
Speaker 1: nor or we may we may have a suspicion, but
Speaker 1: we may not be honest about it when we're doing
Speaker 1: our search. For example, let's say that I put in
Speaker 1: there that I really want to meet someone who's really
Speaker 1: interested in reading, but it turns out that there are
Speaker 1: other factors that I think are way more important. But
Speaker 1: I'm trying to present myself as someone who is an
Speaker 1: intellectual and therefore value this. Some online dating sites can
Speaker 1: figure out when you're fibbing, because it's your behavior that
Speaker 1: tells the site what you're really into. Because if I
Speaker 1: start going through profiles and I'm spending less than a
Speaker 1: couple of seconds on them, and I'm zooming through them
Speaker 1: really quickly, the the online dating stars can log all
Speaker 1: that and say, all right, well, we gave him the
Speaker 1: matches based upon what he said he wanted, but he
Speaker 1: totally breathed through them all so except this one. He
Speaker 1: spent a couple of months looking at this one. So
Speaker 1: really he's looking more for what this person represents rather
Speaker 1: than what he says he represents. And as more and
Speaker 1: more data gets accumulated, the more people who use the site,
Speaker 1: the dating site algorithms adjust themselves and start showing you
Speaker 1: what you really want, even if you're not aware that
Speaker 1: that's what you want to you. Yeah, which is kind
Speaker 1: of weird. I mean, we've talked on tech stuff many
Speaker 1: times about how it only takes a little data to
Speaker 1: give a system a great idea of who you are
Speaker 1: as a person, but it even is true in the
Speaker 1: dating world. There's also approach called collaborative filter filtering. This
Speaker 1: is where a system will organize people into large groups
Speaker 1: just based on preferences which might not even be obvious
Speaker 1: from the outside. So, all right, so let's say we've
Speaker 1: we've at a population of like ten thousand people and
Speaker 1: they've all created profiles. The algorithm will start to find
Speaker 1: commonalities between those people that again, if you were just
Speaker 1: to look at the profiles as a human being, you
Speaker 1: might not even be able to pick out which things
Speaker 1: they have in common. But because we're talking about sites
Speaker 1: that have access to such huge amounts of data and
Speaker 1: can run all these different types of comparisons against one another,
Speaker 1: it makes perfect sense to the algorithm, which is kind
Speaker 1: of creepy in a way when you think about it,
Speaker 1: because it ultimately starts to divide people into large groups
Speaker 1: and it suggests that there are a limited number of
Speaker 1: groups that people fall into. In other words, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like thinking about horoscopes. I don't like the idea
Speaker 1: of a horoscope because it suggests that there are only
Speaker 1: twelve types of people in the world, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: if you if you leap to that, if you say,
Speaker 1: my horoscope for today is, etcetera, that means that roughly
Speaker 1: one twelfth of the world's population is going to have
Speaker 1: the same sort of day I'm going to have, which
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense. But these systems actually show that that's
Speaker 1: not that far off from the truth in the sense
Speaker 1: that there a limited number of categories that you can
Speaker 1: actually shove people into, and from at least a mathematic perspective,
Speaker 1: it makes sense. It works. Yeah, so little creepy um,
Speaker 1: But it turns out like that's not it's not always
Speaker 1: just about the data, the personal data about yourself, right right.
Speaker 1: So one really interesting thing that I found, um was
Speaker 1: I happened to stumble upon a gentleman by the name
Speaker 1: of Dan Arielli. I believe that's how you say his
Speaker 1: last name. And he's over a duke, and he's a
Speaker 1: professor of psychology and behavioral economics. By the way, behavioral
Speaker 1: economics is so fascinating. So um Dan gave an interview
Speaker 1: to the big thing, and what he was saying was right,
Speaker 1: it's not all about the personal data. It's not about
Speaker 1: the boxes you check or you know, your particular preferences.
Speaker 1: And what he was postulating after he kind of browsed
Speaker 1: online dating sites and found them significantly lacking, was that
Speaker 1: it's more about your interaction with the person. That you
Speaker 1: can tell a lot more about an interaction with a
Speaker 1: person than by simply like knowing that you're eyes are
Speaker 1: blue and you like cats and whatever it is about you. Right,
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the difference between a resume and
Speaker 1: a job interview. Absolutely, And so his idea is, let's
Speaker 1: get away from the check boxes and let's set up
Speaker 1: ways for people to interact. And so he set up
Speaker 1: this website and it was basically you can pick an
Speaker 1: avatar and just really simple. It wasn't like one of
Speaker 1: these crazy avatars. It was maybe a triangle and a square,
Speaker 1: there's some color in there. And then he basically put
Speaker 1: like movies and images and words, and you kind of
Speaker 1: move around and navigate and you talk to other avatars
Speaker 1: as you encounter them, and so how all these encounters went,
Speaker 1: which is set up like a better interaction for people
Speaker 1: to meet each other and get to know each other
Speaker 1: and have a successful date ultimately. Well, that's really cool
Speaker 1: that the channel of that is that it kind of
Speaker 1: requires a synchronous approach, meaning that both parties need to
Speaker 1: be active at the same time, whereas we're seeing a
Speaker 1: lot of communication online is asynchronous, right, the idea that
Speaker 1: I can send you a message, Allison, and then you
Speaker 1: respond to it when you have the availability when you
Speaker 1: may not even notice that you have a message until
Speaker 1: an hour later, and you respond and I might not
Speaker 1: notice till three hours later. But we can continue to
Speaker 1: have this communication, which is effective in many ways, but
Speaker 1: it because, yeah, it's disjointed. It's it's you don't have
Speaker 1: a continuous experience. It takes away a lot of that
Speaker 1: spontaneity that you would have in a conversation with an
Speaker 1: actual person in real time. So it's not that there's
Speaker 1: no value in that type of communication. There certainly is.
Speaker 1: And uh, and I love using all the tools that
Speaker 1: have this asynchronous communication aspect to them, but uh, you know,
Speaker 1: this approach, while it might be more effective than say,
Speaker 1: just a a collection of profiles. It demands that you
Speaker 1: have this you know, real time interaction with somebody, which
Speaker 1: limits the number of people that you can presumably encounter
Speaker 1: because it all depends on when both parties are available
Speaker 1: to interact, right, So if you're available to interact at
Speaker 1: the same time, I'm thinking that a synchronous interaction, I mean,
Speaker 1: it just seems like it would be more effective, right
Speaker 1: because you're talking to somebody who's in the same frame
Speaker 1: of minded view. Sure, yeah, I mean, and there are
Speaker 1: a lot of dating sites that have a message system
Speaker 1: where you know, either it's like an instant message type
Speaker 1: thing or something along those lines, where you can set
Speaker 1: that sort of thing up if both parties are online,
Speaker 1: but they don't, they don't depend upon that, right. That's
Speaker 1: that's an added benefit to those sites. You could totally
Speaker 1: have and asynchronous conversation with someone in a series of messages,
Speaker 1: you know, back and forth between each other. But I
Speaker 1: do think that ari elli is onto something. I think
Speaker 1: Arie Ellie is right and that these kind of interactions
Speaker 1: tend to have more value to them than the asynchronous type.
Speaker 1: So he had a funny stat and what he was
Speaker 1: suggesting with that online dating right is ineffective and inefficient.
Speaker 1: And so one of the things that he said was
Speaker 1: that about six hours of chat for one lousy coffee date.
Speaker 1: I mean that's a lot of time invested. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of time invested. Yeah, I mean it's And that's
Speaker 1: the thing is that you can't expect every single interaction
Speaker 1: to go well. In fact, we'll be talking about expectations
Speaker 1: a lot in this episode. Uh, you know, the people
Speaker 1: are people, and you may think going into something that
Speaker 1: you're going to have this incredible interaction, which might just
Speaker 1: be unrealistic expectations. Um, And that's just a human problem
Speaker 1: that's been around forever. I mean that has nothing to
Speaker 1: do necessarily with the Internet. It's or or these dating
Speaker 1: apps and sites. The dating sites often create kind of
Speaker 1: a problem with this because they're built upon the promise
Speaker 1: that their service will help you find someone special. So
Speaker 1: it behooves them to kind of foster this image that
Speaker 1: you are going to meet Mr or Mrs Wright just
Speaker 1: by following, you know, us, creating a profile and seeking
Speaker 1: them out this way. But human interaction is far more
Speaker 1: complicated than that. That, however, is not the right way
Speaker 1: to sell memberships to your dating site. Hey, it's complicated
Speaker 1: and you may or may not like this person. Come
Speaker 1: join our site for twenty bucks a month, but at
Speaker 1: any rate. Um. You know, we also have the interesting
Speaker 1: research that goes into, uh, how the dating sites create
Speaker 1: these algorithms that match people up. Um. There have been
Speaker 1: some folks who have looked into it from a personal perspective,
Speaker 1: people who happened to work in statistics and mathematics and
Speaker 1: computer science, who who were looking for a date and wondering, well,
Speaker 1: what's the most effective way for me to use this tool?
Speaker 1: Engineers tend to think in that way, like you gave
Speaker 1: me a tool, and I can use it this way,
Speaker 1: but is there a better way to use it? So,
Speaker 1: people like Chris McKinley and Amy Webb have experimented with
Speaker 1: various online dating sites to find out what was working
Speaker 1: behind the scenes, How were these matches made the most
Speaker 1: successful profiles, What what was it about those profiles that
Speaker 1: made them successful? And so they really looked deeply into
Speaker 1: these things to figure out how they work, so that
Speaker 1: not that they could game the system, but so that
Speaker 1: they could make the most effective profile to find the
Speaker 1: people they're interested in meeting. Okay, so when we're talking
Speaker 1: about an effective profile, do we mean like somebody who's
Speaker 1: been successful at finding one relationship that the person is
Speaker 1: stuck with or just having a lot of dates. I
Speaker 1: think it was more about the number of responses. They
Speaker 1: wanted to find a profile that got the most responses
Speaker 1: from the people that seemed to be the target audience,
Speaker 1: the people that the folks that the the individuals themselves
Speaker 1: were interested in dating. And so Amy Web actually has
Speaker 1: a fantastic ted talk where she goes through this whole
Speaker 1: process and talked about how she identified the language that
Speaker 1: was being used in very successful profiles. She had created
Speaker 1: several fake profiles and populated them with different approaches to
Speaker 1: kind of see which ones were the most effective, you
Speaker 1: know what, what sort of UH profiles would get the
Speaker 1: most responses. And the the results were dramatic. And some
Speaker 1: people might say, well, as that totally ethical, I mean,
Speaker 1: you've got actual people who are looking for a date
Speaker 1: and they're pursuing a date with a fake persona. But
Speaker 1: at any rate, she said, well, I was doing research,
Speaker 1: you know, I needed to find out how this worked.
Speaker 1: And once I knew that, I could tweak my own profile,
Speaker 1: and sure enough she met a guy they ended up dating,
Speaker 1: and then they ended up getting married. So she was
Speaker 1: doing it both because she is interested in the system
Speaker 1: and also because she genuinely was trying to find someone
Speaker 1: to to go out on dates with. So it to
Speaker 1: me what was interesting is that there are now two
Speaker 1: different types of algorithms out there. There's the algorithm that's
Speaker 1: being used by the dating site to figure out how
Speaker 1: to match people up, and then there are the algorithms
Speaker 1: that people have come up with to figure out how
Speaker 1: to make their profile the most attractive in order to
Speaker 1: get the most potential dates, therefore having the most potential
Speaker 1: chances of finding that someone special. I'd be curious to
Speaker 1: hear what she found out was effective. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think that we've all kind of had the experience of
Speaker 1: maybe your friend is going to go on an online
Speaker 1: dating service, and I certainly, as an editor and lover
Speaker 1: of words in general, have helped friends craft profiles. And
Speaker 1: it's comical. I mean it is comical. So whatever the
Speaker 1: your flaw is, say you're a big old procrastinator, Well,
Speaker 1: I'm laid back, you know, I'll like to take my
Speaker 1: time and enjoy life, right right, So all the code
Speaker 1: were it's in the little editing that you do to
Speaker 1: just tweak it enough. Yeah, it's it's again. It's a
Speaker 1: lot like building a resume, which is both a good
Speaker 1: and a bad thing, right because a resume is all
Speaker 1: about putting your best professional face forwards that you get
Speaker 1: the best opportunity to get a job interview. This is
Speaker 1: putting your best personal face forward to get that opportunity
Speaker 1: for a date. Uh yeah, it's and it's serious business.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is this is these are people's lives
Speaker 1: and not to mention, an entire one point four billion
Speaker 1: dollar industry. So it's a big deal. So how do
Speaker 1: these websites actually make money? Right? So, we talked about
Speaker 1: the subscription service model, right, so you pay some feed
Speaker 1: monthly and or maybe you get I mean, okay, Cupid
Speaker 1: for example, does not it's all free. But then match
Speaker 1: I believe an e Harmony and some of those uh
Speaker 1: you know, to get messages and things like that, you
Speaker 1: have to pay a subscription and then their ads of course, sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: adds support is one of the big ways that any
Speaker 1: web presence makes money. Right. So, but it's not clear
Speaker 1: how some of these apps are making money, and I
Speaker 1: think that they aren't I mean, yeah, no, that's a
Speaker 1: lot of apps don't make money because what the app
Speaker 1: developers trying to do is create a tool that becomes
Speaker 1: so popular that some other company buys out the person
Speaker 1: who developed it, right, I mean, that's the approaches. Let's
Speaker 1: let's make a tool that everyone loves so much that
Speaker 1: a company is going to swoop in here, pay me
Speaker 1: a huge amount of money because of the value that
Speaker 1: the potential or the potential value of that app, because
Speaker 1: of all the people who are using it. You know,
Speaker 1: keep in mind, whenever we're talking about a service or
Speaker 1: an app like this kind of thing, ultimately the product
Speaker 1: is us, the people using that service or app. Where
Speaker 1: the product where the We're the thing that is making
Speaker 1: the money, making money for whatever company owns it. So
Speaker 1: if you are like a tender and you have no jones,
Speaker 1: actually there you go. So if you if you had
Speaker 1: created that app and uh, you didn't have a way
Speaker 1: of monetizing it directly, it may just be that you're
Speaker 1: doing it because it's a really useful thing. People are
Speaker 1: really into it. People are a lot of people are
Speaker 1: are downloading it and active on it. Someone is going
Speaker 1: to find that valuable and they're going to purchase you.
Speaker 1: A lot of them also just exist on venture capitalist
Speaker 1: investment for the short term, which is that's risky because
Speaker 1: that's an investment. People expect to have a return on
Speaker 1: that investment, So you have to eventually figure out a
Speaker 1: way to make some money or you're just gonna you know,
Speaker 1: you've slid your reputation. If you are known as someone
Speaker 1: who makes tools that ultimately never pay out, then you're
Speaker 1: not going to get any financial backing for your future work.
Speaker 1: So uh, I think that's the main way that these
Speaker 1: apps are making money is they're getting bought, which that's
Speaker 1: a risky move. But if you can make a really
Speaker 1: good app, then that's something that you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: something you can count on at least as a potential
Speaker 1: opportunity down the road. It was reading the guy who
Speaker 1: just created Cuddler, Charlie. Yeah, that old Charlie had no idea.
Speaker 1: He was just planning for a soft launch of Cuddler.
Speaker 1: I forget Charlie's last name, sorry Charlie, Yeah, sorry Charlie. Anyway,
Speaker 1: he was just he was unprepared for the sheer amount
Speaker 1: of attention that Cudler received. Yeah. Yeah, it got covered
Speaker 1: by a couple of different UH news outlets like Huffington
Speaker 1: Post and Slate I think wrote about it and uh,
Speaker 1: and that attention meant that there was an explosion in
Speaker 1: downloads and suddenly this app that Charlie probably felt was
Speaker 1: not totally ready yet was being adopted by tons of people.
Speaker 1: And and normally if you're launching, yeah, yeah, it was
Speaker 1: supposed to be a soft launch where he could do
Speaker 1: some testing, get feedback, tweak stuff. But now it goes
Speaker 1: when you get that large adoption, it goes from testing
Speaker 1: phase to now it's a product, and that is a problem.
Speaker 1: Now we should probably mention what Cuddler is. In fact,
Speaker 1: this is a great way of transitioning into just mobile
Speaker 1: apps in general. So Cuddler, which was of course the
Speaker 1: app that that Allison brought to my attention. I did
Speaker 1: not know about this app until you mentioned it to me.
Speaker 1: I had not heard about it. Yeah, my head was
Speaker 1: under a rock apparently when this came out. So Cuddler
Speaker 1: is pretty much what sounds like. It's an app that
Speaker 1: is designed to allow someone who wants to just cuddle
Speaker 1: with somebody else, you know, just find somebody to to
Speaker 1: cuddle with, you know. That's it. Just some personal contact um. Right,
Speaker 1: So it's geolocation base. So you're finally you're finding people
Speaker 1: who are in need of a cuddle nearby you. And
Speaker 1: it's pretty simple set up actually, if in case you
Speaker 1: guys haven't experimented with it, and I know a lot
Speaker 1: of people have, um, but the basic premises, Yeah, you
Speaker 1: say that you're up for a cuddle, you find people
Speaker 1: in your area who are up for it. Once you
Speaker 1: get a match, both of your locations are shown, and
Speaker 1: then you meet. I think you're allowed to send one message, yeah,
Speaker 1: indicating the cuttle time and place. Right. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: the location thing is definitely an issue, I think because
Speaker 1: it's a The way I've read it described is that
Speaker 1: it shows a map and it plots the location of
Speaker 1: the two parties on the map. Right, So if we
Speaker 1: were looking for a cuddle, I could see you heading
Speaker 1: across the park towards me, and you could see me
Speaker 1: heading for that park bench that we decided we were
Speaker 1: going to cuttle on. Right. It's just it's using the
Speaker 1: GPS on your phone to track where you are. Maybe
Speaker 1: even it could could use a cellular tower location even
Speaker 1: if you don't have GPS turned on, because that can
Speaker 1: at least give you an estimation of where the person is.
Speaker 1: It's a little less accurate than GPS, but still works.
Speaker 1: And so you could actually watch as the two people
Speaker 1: converge by looking at the map and uh to to
Speaker 1: you know, cuttle point zero where you're going to cuddle um.
Speaker 1: And so that also the curious thing about Cuddler was
Speaker 1: that I think that the founder or Charlie, he really
Speaker 1: didn't anticipate, you know, that people would be using it
Speaker 1: as they do Tinder, which is you know, for sex. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are people using it to kind of hook up.
Speaker 1: And a lot of folks have described Cuddler as being
Speaker 1: kind of a creeper app, especially with the the fact
Speaker 1: that it shows the location on the map. Um that
Speaker 1: it could be an app for someone to to creep
Speaker 1: on some boy, stalk someone harassed somebody. Uh. But Charlie
Speaker 1: really seems to have his heart in the right place
Speaker 1: in the sense that he just wanted to build a
Speaker 1: tool that would let people who have a lack of
Speaker 1: social interaction and personal contact meet up with other people
Speaker 1: who are having the same sort of issue. And you
Speaker 1: know personal contact, I mean actual physical contact. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's an important part of human interaction and it and
Speaker 1: it definitely can contribute to our sense of well being,
Speaker 1: our sense of fulfillness. If we go without it for
Speaker 1: a long time, it can lead to depression. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're there are real reasons why people could crave and
Speaker 1: need personal contact, but this particular implementation raises a lot
Speaker 1: of troubling questions. Part of it is just again the
Speaker 1: way that the information is displayed. But another part of
Speaker 1: it is just that if you have if you're catering
Speaker 1: to a population of people who are lacking that kind
Speaker 1: of contact, you're probably going to have at least a
Speaker 1: few cases of negative outcomes, right, I mean you're talking
Speaker 1: about people who maybe in a very either they themselves
Speaker 1: are in a very vulnerable place, which can lead to problems,
Speaker 1: or it could lead to people who are praying upon
Speaker 1: folks who are in a vulnerable place. Right. So there
Speaker 1: is that one account that we both read. The writer
Speaker 1: from gig Um Carmel Yeah, d M mess I believe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she wrote of her experience. She wrote up an entire
Speaker 1: article which was an entertaining read and also a little
Speaker 1: a little scary. Yeah, she met up with another young lady. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, young lady. She met up with another lady,
Speaker 1: and I think she was actually an older woman who
Speaker 1: Carmel called Monica. In the article, she explained that she
Speaker 1: had changed the name to protect Monica's privacy, which I
Speaker 1: think was the right choice to go to go with,
Speaker 1: and that she met at Monica's home and yeah, for
Speaker 1: a cuddle. So the problem there clearly is her not
Speaker 1: being in a public place and going to the person's home.
Speaker 1: And it seems like it worked out okay for this
Speaker 1: writer and good for her for trying and bravery and
Speaker 1: all that stuff, but also a little alarming that she
Speaker 1: went to somebody's house. And as she added that the
Speaker 1: woman Monica showed her a gun at one point and
Speaker 1: showed her how to use it. Yeah, to say that,
Speaker 1: you know, she had worried about safety, and that's when
Speaker 1: she had gone out and got a gun. And this
Speaker 1: was all part of the casual conversation. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, the reporter says it's a little worrisome, and
Speaker 1: that she had contacted Charlie, the creator of Cutler, and
Speaker 1: he said, yeah, that was probably not a good idea.
Speaker 1: I did and intend for that. When I wrote this app,
Speaker 1: I was thinking that people would first meet in a
Speaker 1: safe location, like a public space. But then Carmel's point is, well,
Speaker 1: if you're already having this this problem of a lack
Speaker 1: of physical contact, does it add even more anxiety to
Speaker 1: require it to take place in public where people can
Speaker 1: see you? And that is a little weird. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: I respect the idea behind it, I really do. I
Speaker 1: understand that we all need human interaction and I could
Speaker 1: totally use a hug on most days. But but I
Speaker 1: think we've outlined the problematic aspects of it. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: on a on a personal level, I am I'm big
Speaker 1: into hugs. I'm a big I'm a big fan of hugs,
Speaker 1: but only with certain circles of my friends. I have
Speaker 1: never gotten hug just by the way from me, No,
Speaker 1: because I don't hug coworkers. Yeah, thinks like a decent policy.
Speaker 1: There's Yeah, there's there's certain like like worker, Well, I
Speaker 1: have to because Candice. I mean, how can you How
Speaker 1: can you not hug Candice? She's like probably the most
Speaker 1: huggable person on the planet. But um, yeah, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't tend to hug co workers. I put them
Speaker 1: in a circle where I think these are the types
Speaker 1: of social interactions that are appropriate for people that I
Speaker 1: work with. And if I meet them outside of that
Speaker 1: and we socialize outside of that and they enter another
Speaker 1: circle of friends, like, if that then diagram has overlap,
Speaker 1: that's perfectly acceptable. But otherwise, yeah, I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: think of it as acceptable for co workers in general.
Speaker 1: I'm not against it, but on principle, it's just that's
Speaker 1: kind of how I think. But uh, and strangers don't
Speaker 1: tend to hug them. Uh, there are exceptions. There have
Speaker 1: been some people who have been introduced to me and
Speaker 1: upon introduction, they immediately hugged me. But they did so
Speaker 1: with such uh genuine charm that I was all right
Speaker 1: with it. But it's a really rare thing. In fact,
Speaker 1: I interviewed one of them just the other day protect stuff.
Speaker 1: So do you want to hear my idea for an app? Yes,
Speaker 1: I think that they should be a backscratcher app. You know,
Speaker 1: I can totally agree to that. So a similar thing,
Speaker 1: but you have to be I think you have to
Speaker 1: make the premise or the area of to put the
Speaker 1: call at to you much smaller. You don't want to
Speaker 1: cross town to find finally get that person toscribe because
Speaker 1: by then the itch is gone, right, the itch is gone,
Speaker 1: but sometimes you just can't reach it. It's just right
Speaker 1: there between the shoulder blades. And you know, the more
Speaker 1: we talk about, the more it's going to actually start
Speaker 1: to creep into my mind. So I'm going to change
Speaker 1: the subject. But that's a great idea. Yeah, it's much
Speaker 1: better than a phone that has a backscratcher that swings
Speaker 1: out from it, because that would just bulk. So you
Speaker 1: mentioned Tender, which is a great app to to refer
Speaker 1: to as well, because it's so popular that one debuted
Speaker 1: back in two thousand twelve, and you mentioned that it's
Speaker 1: owned by match dot com. Uh. Now, the founders like
Speaker 1: to talk about it as being a social discovery tool
Speaker 1: that you're you use it to find people to hang
Speaker 1: out with. And the way tender works is it pulls
Speaker 1: photos from Facebook profile. Else then you look at the
Speaker 1: profile and you can swipe left, left to dismiss it
Speaker 1: or right if you're interested and you want to make
Speaker 1: contact with this person. Um. But while they talk about
Speaker 1: it as a social discovery tool, that's not necessarily it's
Speaker 1: all about hooking up. It's about you know, it's the
Speaker 1: hot or not approach. It's you know, this person is
Speaker 1: this person I find attractive this one I don't find attractive. No, no, no, yes, no,
Speaker 1: no no. And um, you know the fact that it
Speaker 1: has this kind of swipe to dismiss or swipe to accept,
Speaker 1: really I think drives that home. It actually is, making
Speaker 1: it a physical activity that you associate with either accepting
Speaker 1: or rejecting. So I think there's something interesting psychologically there.
Speaker 1: I'm not a psychologist, so I certainly can't draw any conclusions,
Speaker 1: but I would love to hear a study about this
Speaker 1: kind of behavior and what it sort of feeds into
Speaker 1: because one of the things one of the criticisms I've
Speaker 1: read about online dating in general is that it promotes
Speaker 1: this kind of shopping behavior. Absolutely, so the idea of
Speaker 1: of your You're like, it's like you're going through a catalog,
Speaker 1: and it's not it's not really promoting an interaction so
Speaker 1: much as this this very rapid except reject kind of approach,
Speaker 1: and Tender sort of just exemplifies that because of the
Speaker 1: way the app is built, right, Well, so I wonder
Speaker 1: what the outcomes ultimately would be from that, Right, So
Speaker 1: you hook up with somebody on Tender and then you know,
Speaker 1: are you If you're just looking for a hook up,
Speaker 1: that's fun. But if you're looking to date somebody, I mean,
Speaker 1: what are the outcomes? You know, do you wind up
Speaker 1: dating having successful like partnerships with people are not so much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know what basis is that
Speaker 1: split second decision in which you're swiping left or swiping right? Like,
Speaker 1: how true is that instinct? Well, and there are people
Speaker 1: who have said that perhaps the activity of using Tinder
Speaker 1: itself is more exciting than any actual interaction that follows,
Speaker 1: that that the thrill of ender is just the use
Speaker 1: of Tinder, not not not any kind of actual encounter
Speaker 1: that might follow, but just the the feeling of rejecting
Speaker 1: or saying this person is attractive to me itself is
Speaker 1: social activity. It's one that you can do with your friends.
Speaker 1: I was reading an article about in the Wall Street
Speaker 1: Journal about some football players, professional football players I think
Speaker 1: out of New York, maybe the Jets or the Giants,
Speaker 1: and they were essentially using Tinder to um find people
Speaker 1: without advertising that they were professional football players. And so
Speaker 1: you know they're sitting around though swipe left, yeah, swipe right,
Speaker 1: and they were you know, meeting up with some of
Speaker 1: the people they found on Tinder, and they found it
Speaker 1: useful for when they were they were away from home
Speaker 1: at training camp I think, maybe an upstate New York
Speaker 1: and also to kind of give them a little bit
Speaker 1: of a layer of anonymity until they were ready to
Speaker 1: say like, hey, you know, I do this for a living.
Speaker 1: And so in that case, they were actually looking at
Speaker 1: to strip away some of the identifying information that would
Speaker 1: otherwise bias someone towards them, like, you know, I want
Speaker 1: to see if this person would be interested in meeting
Speaker 1: up with me and or at least carrying on a
Speaker 1: conversation with me before they know what I do for
Speaker 1: a living, because if they know what I do for
Speaker 1: a living, I'll never be sure if that's the reason
Speaker 1: why they pursued me. Yeah, I think that was the idea. Interesting.
Speaker 1: And then for those uh you know, Tinder is not
Speaker 1: itself a new idea. There was actually an app that
Speaker 1: pre uh that predated Tinder, uh called Grinder that was
Speaker 1: specifically for gay and bisexual and by curious men to
Speaker 1: find one another for essentially the purpose of hooking up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was the first one, I believe. Yeah, so that
Speaker 1: was that was something that led to the development of
Speaker 1: other apps, So you can kind of see that as
Speaker 1: being the genesis of the same sort of idea that
Speaker 1: we've seen with Tinder and to maybe some extent, Cuddler,
Speaker 1: even though again Cudler is mostly it's it's intended for
Speaker 1: non sexual cuddling, or at least that's you know, that
Speaker 1: seems to be the intention. It's hard for me to
Speaker 1: ever say that what was intended without speaking directly to
Speaker 1: the person who created these acts, but just based upon
Speaker 1: what I've read, Yeah, so I guess I'm wondering if
Speaker 1: things like Tinder and Grinder and all these things that
Speaker 1: are sort of more geared at hooking up, if that
Speaker 1: makes people change your behavior on online dating sites, Right,
Speaker 1: so you can kind of segment out your behavior. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is what I'm gonna use for hooking up, and
Speaker 1: this is what I'm going to use to find my
Speaker 1: lifelong partner. So essentially, the difference between like a real
Speaker 1: life situation where you might go to a specific club
Speaker 1: or bar in order for you to find someone to
Speaker 1: hook up with, versus you know, you're looking seriously for
Speaker 1: that person who's going to be taking an important part
Speaker 1: of your life like from that point forward. Absolutely, I
Speaker 1: expect that that actually is the case. I mean, I
Speaker 1: imagine that that is true. UM. I don't know which
Speaker 1: online dating sites are the most popular for the people
Speaker 1: who tend to use the apps like Tinder. There are
Speaker 1: other apps that are more meant to try and bring
Speaker 1: people together in a social setting without the pressure of
Speaker 1: this one on one meeting. One of them is called Grouper.
Speaker 1: Group sounds really fun. I have to say Grouper is
Speaker 1: kind of a neat idea, and that you end up
Speaker 1: creating a group of three and usually, at least the
Speaker 1: way I've seen it portrayed, it's three people of the
Speaker 1: same gender who are going after a chance to meet
Speaker 1: three other people of whichever gender the three prefer. So
Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't have to be opposite sex, it
Speaker 1: could be same sex. But the idea being that you
Speaker 1: have these three people who have paid into the service
Speaker 1: to be matched up with three other people that the
Speaker 1: service has decided appear to be uh compatible for an
Speaker 1: enjoyable evening. Yet and and the app also includes uh
Speaker 1: it pays for the first round of drinks for everybody,
Speaker 1: so everyone gets one free drink. Yeah, so you get
Speaker 1: a group of six people together to hang out, and
Speaker 1: it takes pressure off of the one on one meeting,
Speaker 1: although it could lead to other really socially awkward situations
Speaker 1: where maybe two people have interest in one person or
Speaker 1: let's get out of here man, yeah, which right? Or
Speaker 1: yeah or you get it, where like, you know, one
Speaker 1: person gets left out because two of the people are
Speaker 1: interested in you know, and and in member number one,
Speaker 1: one person's interested in member number two. Remember number three
Speaker 1: is out. Meanwhile, remember number one is like, well great,
Speaker 1: now I've got these two people after me. Um. So
Speaker 1: there are a lot of different things that could come up,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't necessarily have to lead to that. It
Speaker 1: could just be oh, that was a fun evening out,
Speaker 1: and now I've got a new group of friends and
Speaker 1: I can hang out with them and do stuff. So,
Speaker 1: you know, when you I could see for this is
Speaker 1: uh so I am not available, but one of my
Speaker 1: friends is available. And I would totally be a wing woman.
Speaker 1: And I think that is a position you can take
Speaker 1: up when you do these group of things. You can
Speaker 1: be a wing woman or a wingman. Sure, I actually
Speaker 1: like to think of myself as a rather good wing woman.
Speaker 1: I'm terrible. Yeah, I'm a great talker, but I'm also oblivious,
Speaker 1: so I'm I'm just not in that headspace right So
Speaker 1: for me, I would be terrible. I would be trying
Speaker 1: to think of the next funny thing to say just
Speaker 1: to make everybody laugh. And I meanwhile, whoever I'm being
Speaker 1: wingman for is just thinking, just shut up, Jonathan, just
Speaker 1: just shut up for a minute. Um. What's cool and
Speaker 1: maybe not cool about Grouper at the same time is
Speaker 1: you know, how does it come up with how to
Speaker 1: match you up with another group of people, and it
Speaker 1: it minds your Facebook information. Now, keep in mind you
Speaker 1: have to, uh, you have to authorize the app to
Speaker 1: be able to mind that information. And you can always
Speaker 1: keep stuff private. I mean a lot of this ends
Speaker 1: up being information that's publicly available because you have put
Speaker 1: it up on Facebook and you didn't set the privacy
Speaker 1: setting so that it couldn't be seen by other entities.
Speaker 1: But it does mean that it's going to be looking
Speaker 1: at everything from your age. It's also gonna look at
Speaker 1: your ends list because it doesn't want to match up
Speaker 1: three people with folks that they already know. That's not
Speaker 1: the perfect problem in a small town setting, I would think. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's even a problem just for neighborhoods, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, Atlanta is in most cities are collections of neighborhoods,
Speaker 1: and you have people who tend to be very um
Speaker 1: like like they'll they'll range outward from their neighborhood, but
Speaker 1: it's it gets increasingly smaller, like the they'll they'll spend
Speaker 1: less time the further out right, unless they happen to
Speaker 1: live in a part of town that they just considered
Speaker 1: to be dead and they need to go to a
Speaker 1: different part of town for stuff that happens. But I
Speaker 1: can definitely see that becoming a challenge, especially if you're
Speaker 1: a really social person, particularly if you're really social online,
Speaker 1: because I know people who accept friend requests online. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they'll have hundreds of them, and most studies say that
Speaker 1: we're only capable of supporting about a hundred fifty relationships.
Speaker 1: Oh did you just see that great video we did
Speaker 1: on that? I know that Ben did a video on
Speaker 1: sure it's on brain stuff. I was good. I thought
Speaker 1: it was super interesting. It's a really good video, right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And I had heard about that before we before he
Speaker 1: had done the video, but he did a great job
Speaker 1: explaining it. So if you keep that in mind, you
Speaker 1: might be someone who accepts lots of friend requests anyway.
Speaker 1: And it may be that you know you've got hundreds
Speaker 1: of friends on Facebook. That's gonna narrow down your options
Speaker 1: when you use something like Grouper that's specifically looking to
Speaker 1: try and match you up with people you don't know.
Speaker 1: The one cool thing I will say about Grouper is um, actually,
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty cool in general. But the one
Speaker 1: thing I would say about Grouper though, is that I
Speaker 1: think it's in line with a lot of with how
Speaker 1: people go out these days, especially the young people. If
Speaker 1: you got a big group and so it's got that
Speaker 1: going on for it's right in line with that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think again it all depends upon the expectations
Speaker 1: you bring, right, So if you bring the expectation of
Speaker 1: I just want to go out and meet some folks,
Speaker 1: get to know them, have some fun, and then maybe
Speaker 1: we find out that some of us click and that's awesome.
Speaker 1: And may be it doesn't happen, but as long as
Speaker 1: we're having a good time and enjoying ourselves, that's cool too.
Speaker 1: Like I think, if you go in with the right expectations.
Speaker 1: Then you're you're much less likely to you know, pen
Speaker 1: all your hopes on something that may or may not happen,
Speaker 1: and thus avoid a crash if it doesn't turn out
Speaker 1: the way you had hoped. But that's easier said than done.
Speaker 1: That's said by a guy who's been married seventeen years.
Speaker 1: So I don't you know, I don't. It's no, I'm not.
Speaker 1: Then there's a how about we, which is an interesting
Speaker 1: app It lets people propose a specific date experience. Now
Speaker 1: this can actually be between existing couples, where it's really
Speaker 1: just you could send a message to your your partner
Speaker 1: and say, how about we, you know, go out for
Speaker 1: sushi tonight. That could be your thing, Or it could
Speaker 1: be a way of trying to look for a date
Speaker 1: where you describe a date that you think would be fun.
Speaker 1: You say, how about we go to karaoke, you know
Speaker 1: and seeing John Cougar Mellencamp song really loudly, and and
Speaker 1: so you say that, and then you wait to see
Speaker 1: if anyone responds, and if they do, and it's and
Speaker 1: it's truly a date experience that you think would be
Speaker 1: fun and they also think it would be fun. The
Speaker 1: idea there is that you would be very compatible to
Speaker 1: have a good time. Maybe nothing romantic comes out of it,
Speaker 1: but you would be able to have a fun interaction
Speaker 1: with another human being doing something you both enjoy. So, uh,
Speaker 1: from why I understand the people who use how about
Speaker 1: we tend to be in an older age bracket than
Speaker 1: the folks who use Tender, but they're using it for
Speaker 1: you know, kind of similar purpose, not necessarily to hook up,
Speaker 1: but to have these kind of interactions with people that
Speaker 1: they haven't met before. So this was interesting. There's this
Speaker 1: one called Siren then I came across when I was
Speaker 1: researching this podcast, and this one is a two thousand
Speaker 1: fourteen invitation only entrant in the app world, in the
Speaker 1: dating app world, and the spin here is that the
Speaker 1: women control their visibility. Right. So the founders is, um,
Speaker 1: she's actually very interesting, Susie Lee. She's an artist and
Speaker 1: she's also the sa EO, and she wanted to give
Speaker 1: women the power back in these online dating sites and
Speaker 1: dating apps, and so instead of profiles or swiping left
Speaker 1: or right right. So we've kind of already gone through
Speaker 1: like what maybe problematic with the profile and talked about
Speaker 1: the swiping business what you do here is you respond
Speaker 1: to these daily q and a's posted by a sponsor
Speaker 1: and there I think the sponsors are cultural types like
Speaker 1: museums or you know, music organizations stuff like that, so
Speaker 1: not like fast food restaurants or something. Right, but one
Speaker 1: of the sample questions, one of the sample q and
Speaker 1: as they said, was that describe your favorite sandwich from
Speaker 1: top to bottom. Right, so you see this one pop
Speaker 1: up on your siren app and you describe it. I
Speaker 1: think you can also post video and then you can
Speaker 1: make it visible. And people, I mean, people are pretty witty,
Speaker 1: people are funny, and for me as an editor, one
Speaker 1: of the things that I find really attractive about people
Speaker 1: is their their way with words. So I think reading something,
Speaker 1: it's it just gets that more of somebody's personality, like
Speaker 1: that they're able to show right there. Yeah, yeah, the
Speaker 1: the way that someone answers a question can tell you
Speaker 1: a lot about their general thinking process, whether or not
Speaker 1: you find that to be an attractive feature or not.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I could certainly see that as being a
Speaker 1: really cool way of deciding whether or not to try
Speaker 1: and take that further with an actual interaction. Right. So,
Speaker 1: so you like the way that this person described their
Speaker 1: favorite sandwich, and what do you know, The next question
Speaker 1: is who's your favorite beatle? The next day and the
Speaker 1: same person says, like, you know, makes you laugh because
Speaker 1: it's John Lennon and your favorite beatle is Shohn Lennon.
Speaker 1: You've got to meet this person. So what you do
Speaker 1: then is you'd make your information visible to the man.
Speaker 1: And so that's that's pretty interesting. Again, it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of a feminist dating app in that, um, you the
Speaker 1: woman is unlocking her data for the man at her choice.
Speaker 1: That's the big premise here. And I know people, some
Speaker 1: people are gonna be unhappy and why do you need that?
Speaker 1: But she thought there was a need for it, and
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty no. I I do too, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, considering that we're talking about something that in
Speaker 1: our culture, and in the United States in particular, uh,
Speaker 1: it tends to be the cultural idea tends to be
Speaker 1: that the man is in pursuit of the woman and
Speaker 1: that women are things to be pursued. And that's the
Speaker 1: problem there. It's viewing women as things as exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: So this is an approach that to try and kind
Speaker 1: of counteract that in a way and Uh, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's a problematic thing because we're talking about a
Speaker 1: cultural issue. It's deep seated, and it's something that changes
Speaker 1: very gradually with time and only with effort. Right, It's
Speaker 1: not something that's gonna spontaneously change. So I like seeing
Speaker 1: this kind of creative approach because I do want to
Speaker 1: see that model eventually change. I would like to see
Speaker 1: there to be a little more equality here between the genders. Um. So,
Speaker 1: once you just side you like somebody, and if maybe
Speaker 1: you're feeling like you want to meet somebody, you can
Speaker 1: put out what's called a siren call, and that's basically
Speaker 1: like you're interacting with people to see if anybody's up
Speaker 1: for something. I love that it's a siren call. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of awesome, right, yeah, because that doesn't have
Speaker 1: any kind of uh, you know, sinister overtones, do it
Speaker 1: at all? For those of us who enjoy things like
Speaker 1: the Odyssey? But no, it is pretty funny. Uh. We
Speaker 1: can't have this discussion without bringing to light an app
Speaker 1: that was truly problematic, one that came up in two
Speaker 1: thousand and twelve called Girls Around Me. Now, this app
Speaker 1: was one that that Allison, you had not heard about right,
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I heard about it because I
Speaker 1: was very much following all the tech news at the time,
Speaker 1: and it was one that I immediately found to be troubling. Now,
Speaker 1: it was troubling in a very kind of, hey, it's
Speaker 1: not our fault kind of way, which makes it doubly
Speaker 1: troubling to me. The app pulled information from four Square
Speaker 1: and from Facebook. Now again, to use these things, you uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you create your profiles and you are actively
Speaker 1: sharing things, so that that seems to be the justification
Speaker 1: of well, it's okay for us to make this app then,
Speaker 1: because people are active, Yeah, they're they're the ones presenting
Speaker 1: this information. We're just aggregating it and displaying it um.
Speaker 1: But part of the problem is, I think not everyone
Speaker 1: is aware of exactly the implications of sharing their data.
Speaker 1: They're thinking, oh, I'm I'm checking into this restaurant because
Speaker 1: I really like the restaurant and I just want my
Speaker 1: friends to know, and I think it's kind of cool,
Speaker 1: and you know, get and I get bonuses if I
Speaker 1: check in enough times. So what this app was doing
Speaker 1: was it was pulling the check in information from four
Speaker 1: Square and pulling Facebook profiles that were connected to those
Speaker 1: four square profiles and pulling in pictures and information about people.
Speaker 1: So if I had the app and I wanted to
Speaker 1: use it, I could pull it up. It would pull
Speaker 1: up a map show the check ins surrounding my area.
Speaker 1: If I click on any of them, it would show
Speaker 1: me pictures from the Facebook profile of the person who
Speaker 1: had checked in. I could even look at their profile
Speaker 1: and get more information about them, like what they like,
Speaker 1: what their name is, how old they are, And so
Speaker 1: a lot of people pointed out that this could really
Speaker 1: facilitate stalkers, right, I mean, if I look up a person,
Speaker 1: I think, oh, she's cute. Oh, and she likes these
Speaker 1: bands and this is her name. I could walk up
Speaker 1: to her and say, hey, there Susie. Uh yeah, you
Speaker 1: know this band is coming to town again and I
Speaker 1: was just thinking maybe we could go check it out. Yeah. Especially,
Speaker 1: you could present yourself as if this person already knew you,
Speaker 1: and that is very problematic. So especially find that problematic
Speaker 1: for for younger people. Yeah, yeah, especially for anyone again
Speaker 1: who is not truly aware of the implications of sharing.
Speaker 1: And we see this a lot where people just don't
Speaker 1: really think of the consequences of sharing. A lot of information. Well,
Speaker 1: it caused so much commotion, and that four Square pulled
Speaker 1: the API, the part of their their programming that allows
Speaker 1: people to develop apps to take advantage of four squares capabilities.
Speaker 1: They pulled it, so it took away the functionality of
Speaker 1: the app, and eventually the the Russian company that created
Speaker 1: the app removed it from the iTunes store because it
Speaker 1: was broken. You couldn't use it anymore because the four
Speaker 1: Square functionality have been pulled from it. But it certainly
Speaker 1: was one of those things that opened up a lot
Speaker 1: of eyes about the potential dangers of using these kind
Speaker 1: of apps. So it is important to have this human interaction,
Speaker 1: and we don't want to discourage people from having human interaction,
Speaker 1: but you have to do it with the right context.
Speaker 1: You have to do it with the right mind for
Speaker 1: your safety, into your security and just whatever it is
Speaker 1: that you're hoping to get out of it, that you
Speaker 1: have the right expectations for it, because otherwise bad things
Speaker 1: could happen. It's just that's that's the Yeah. Yeah, as
Speaker 1: we pointed out, a lot of solid relationships, it's true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of studies about online dating that
Speaker 1: have suggested that there are lots of benefits. Gives you
Speaker 1: a lot more chances to meet a potential partner, so
Speaker 1: your your h pool of potential partners is increased, meaning
Speaker 1: that you have a chance of finding that relationship that
Speaker 1: gives you real meaning and in a sense of fulfillment. Um.
Speaker 1: It helps cut down on potentially threatening context because you
Speaker 1: can have those early interactions in an online space as
Speaker 1: opposed to a physical space, and you can determine quickly
Speaker 1: which ones are the ones that are most promising and
Speaker 1: which ones you think are not going to lead anywhere
Speaker 1: or are undesirable. So that's an advantage as well. Uh,
Speaker 1: it gives you the chance to omit people from that
Speaker 1: pool if you realize very early on, like no, this
Speaker 1: is not what I want, this person is not and
Speaker 1: I are not going to click. Um. Now, we talked
Speaker 1: about the shopping downside with the objectification of people. You
Speaker 1: treat them as objects. This person is hot, this person
Speaker 1: not hot. That is an issue. Uh, it's really easy
Speaker 1: to to just blast through people as if they are
Speaker 1: just data and that isn't that's a problem. Objectifying people
Speaker 1: is not not a great outcome psychologically speaking. Um. And
Speaker 1: also that matching with personality types appears to have a
Speaker 1: relatively minor role in romantic attraction or relationship success. So
Speaker 1: even if you find that person who on paper is
Speaker 1: a perfect match for you, it doesn't guarantee that you
Speaker 1: will have a happy relationship with that person. It's more
Speaker 1: to it than that. And uh, again, it doesn't help
Speaker 1: that we can't necessarily know what we're actually looking for
Speaker 1: when we go out looking for that potential someone. We
Speaker 1: think we do, yeah, because we think we know exactly
Speaker 1: the things that are going to appeal to us. But
Speaker 1: that's not always the case, you know. They say like
Speaker 1: the opposites attract. Part of that is to say that
Speaker 1: if you go and find someone who's exactly like yourself,
Speaker 1: you may not find that to be a rewarding experience.
Speaker 1: I know that if my wife are exactly like I am,
Speaker 1: one of us would have killed the other one. By now,
Speaker 1: it would have happened. One of me is more than enough,
Speaker 1: is what I'm saying. But the studies show that online
Speaker 1: relationships can be just as stable as those that were
Speaker 1: formed offline. So online is a great way to meet people,
Speaker 1: it's and it can lead to a happy, stable relationship. Um,
Speaker 1: it's just important that you know, you take that expectation
Speaker 1: and you check it to make sure that you're not
Speaker 1: going in with with with online stars in your eyes
Speaker 1: and m so I think the end of the day,
Speaker 1: we say use use online tools if that's what you're
Speaker 1: You know, when you're looking for someone, whether you're looking
Speaker 1: for someone to hang out with or you're looking for
Speaker 1: someone to potentially be uh, you know that that special
Speaker 1: someone in your life, but do so with critical thinking,
Speaker 1: do so with safety in mind. Do so knowing that
Speaker 1: that's another person at the end of that profile, you know,
Speaker 1: not an object. That is another person, eman being with feelings.
Speaker 1: They've got hopes, they've got dreams, they've got aspirations, they've
Speaker 1: got fears, they've got doubts about themselves. And if you
Speaker 1: keep that in mind, and you're more likely to have
Speaker 1: a human interaction as opposed to something that crashes and
Speaker 1: burns and is a terrible experience for everybody. UM, I
Speaker 1: don't know why I'm giving dating advice. I'm not necessarily
Speaker 1: an authority on the subject. I'm just a very empathetic
Speaker 1: kind of person that I did have a blast researching
Speaker 1: this podcast. Yeah, it's fascinating world of modern love. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm really uh and that's a great song by David Bowie.
Speaker 1: I'm really um hoping that we can find more studies
Speaker 1: that show really what was the psychological impact of some
Speaker 1: of these approaches. I'm very curious to see what the
Speaker 1: tender approach is like. Uh. From that, From that a
Speaker 1: psychological perspective, I often I also think that most of
Speaker 1: the people who are using tender tend to be in
Speaker 1: an age group where it's you know, they're not necessarily
Speaker 1: looking for the person who's going to be with them
Speaker 1: for the rest of their lives. And there's nothing necessarily
Speaker 1: wrong with that. Again, assuming that everyone's going in with
Speaker 1: equal expectations. Um, So I don't necessarily think it's harmful
Speaker 1: in the long run. It may just be one of
Speaker 1: those phases of maturity, right so um. But again I'm
Speaker 1: not an expert on that either. This is a lot
Speaker 1: of armchair psychology from Jonathan today. Alison, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining me. I had a blast, Jonathan, thanks
Speaker 1: for having me. Yeah, Alison is an incredibly busy woman.
Speaker 1: She and it's a lot of the articles that you
Speaker 1: see at how stuff works dot com and if you've
Speaker 1: ever visited the site and thought, Wow, this site is awesome.
Speaker 1: A huge part of that comes from Allison makes make
Speaker 1: sure that the awesome gets through and they'm not awesome
Speaker 1: doesn't get through. So uh, Alison, keep fighting the good fight.
Speaker 1: You're doing great work. And guys, if you have any
Speaker 1: suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff, maybe there's some
Speaker 1: other aspect of technology that you've always wondered more about,
Speaker 1: like what's the cultural impact of something, or just how
Speaker 1: something works? Right in ask me a question my email
Speaker 1: addresses tex stuff at how stuff works dot com, or
Speaker 1: dropped me a line on Facebook, Twitter or Tumbler. The
Speaker 1: handle at all three is tech Stuff H. S W
Speaker 1: and I'll talk to you again. Really sick for more
Speaker 1: on this and bathands of other topics because it has
Speaker 1: to have works dot Com