00:00:08
my name is bella glanville and
00:00:11
you might recognize me from shows such
00:00:13
as celebsco virtual dating
00:00:15
where i made it to the finale and won
00:00:17
pete wicks's heart
00:00:18
but i'm also a psychologist and a
00:00:20
motivational writer
00:00:22
and after seeing the title of this talk
00:00:24
you might be thinking
00:00:25
this girl is an expert on online dating
00:00:28
and she's going to teach us the secret
00:00:29
to cracking the algorithm
00:00:31
well think again because this entire
00:00:34
talk is about why the algorithm
00:00:36
is rubbish i was the only virtual date
00:00:40
that pete had throughout the show yet he
00:00:42
still
00:00:43
chose me and there are a couple of
00:00:45
scientific
00:00:46
theories that could explain why he
00:00:48
preferred me to the in-person dates
00:00:52
when you meet someone online the
00:00:53
characteristics that limit you from
00:00:55
getting into relationships in real life
00:00:58
aren't there and this is called the
00:00:59
absence of gaiting
00:01:02
shyness awkwardness and irritating
00:01:05
sneeze
00:01:06
these are all things that aren't present
00:01:07
online but the problem is that we fill
00:01:10
in the gaps of who we think
00:01:12
someone is and we make them out to be
00:01:14
our definition of a dream partner
00:01:17
but people fool us and these gaps that
00:01:19
we fill in aren't always accurate
00:01:22
an american study actually found that
00:01:24
online data's
00:01:25
present a more socially desirable self
00:01:28
and even steal
00:01:29
other people's profile ideas
00:01:33
we also might prefer the people that we
00:01:34
meet online because of the strangers on
00:01:36
a train effect
00:01:37
and there's been so much research about
00:01:39
this you're more likely to open up to a
00:01:42
stranger on a train or say
00:01:44
maybe a hairdresser because you can
00:01:46
trust that the information won't get out
00:01:48
to people that you know
00:01:50
in the same way you're more likely to
00:01:53
open up to people that you don't know
00:01:55
online
00:01:56
and a skype study found that people
00:01:57
prefer dates that they can have a deep
00:02:00
intimate conversation with in fact uh
00:02:04
the conversation that i had on my first
00:02:05
celebrity virtual date was very deep
00:02:07
which
00:02:08
probably stood out from the usual
00:02:10
somewhat fruity talk and humorous dates
00:02:13
that you get on that show
00:02:15
there's also a biological basis behind
00:02:18
why people like to talk about themselves
00:02:21
tamara and mitchell found that when we
00:02:23
do there's an increased
00:02:25
mri activity in the brain regions
00:02:27
associated with reward
00:02:30
and speaking of reward what was my
00:02:33
reward for making it to the finale of
00:02:34
that dating show
00:02:36
well we never saw each other again
00:02:40
online dating has changed the game of
00:02:43
relationships
00:02:44
nowadays if you don't like the
00:02:46
relationship that you're in
00:02:48
you can just swipe left and get a new
00:02:50
one
00:02:51
and a one night stand is now at the end
00:02:53
of people's fingertips
00:02:55
the instant fix of a tinder match or
00:02:57
scrolling through pawn sites gives
00:02:59
instant gratification but is it truly as
00:03:03
gratifying as
00:03:04
old-fashioned courtship is the catch not
00:03:07
more thrilling when you've earned the
00:03:08
thrill of the chase
00:03:11
our attention spans are becoming shorter
00:03:14
and conditions like adhd are escalating
00:03:17
it's so easy now to switch and change
00:03:19
between
00:03:20
jobs and women and lifestyle that
00:03:22
generation z
00:03:23
feel no reason to settle for fidelity or
00:03:26
loyalty
00:03:27
and that's why this generation includes
00:03:29
less people who want a monogamous
00:03:31
relationship
00:03:33
we have this notion of entitlement and
00:03:36
we want it all
00:03:37
but the lack of depth in our goals and
00:03:39
life choices
00:03:40
leaves us forever wanting more so now if
00:03:43
we're sitting on a tinder date
00:03:45
we're more likely to sit there and think
00:03:47
about who we can swipe right on next
00:03:49
that's better than the person we're
00:03:50
already sitting with
00:03:52
so we see potential partners now as more
00:03:54
disposable
00:03:56
because the attention span of society is
00:03:58
becoming so much
00:03:59
shorter in fact a recent study found
00:04:03
that only
00:04:03
50 percent of people on tinder will meet
00:04:06
up with
00:04:07
one of their matches that being said
00:04:10
another study found
00:04:11
72 percent of people with internet
00:04:13
access to be in a relationship
00:04:15
whereas only 36 of people without
00:04:18
internet access
00:04:20
were in a relationship online dating has
00:04:23
displaced the original ways of meeting a
00:04:26
partner
00:04:27
instead of meeting a potential partner
00:04:30
getting a snapshot
00:04:31
impression of how well you interact with
00:04:33
them and then slowly learning facts
00:04:35
about them over time
00:04:36
online dating typically involves
00:04:38
learning a broad range of facts about a
00:04:40
potential partner
00:04:42
before deciding whether or not you want
00:04:44
to meet them in person
00:04:46
but is this a good thing
00:04:49
my friend was talking to a guy
00:04:51
throughout lockdown and as they legally
00:04:53
couldn't meet in person
00:04:54
they just voice noted every day and
00:04:55
eventually had a seven hour phone call
00:04:58
seven hours so he passed the absence of
00:05:02
gating test
00:05:02
he passed the disposability test but by
00:05:05
the time they were able to meet in
00:05:07
person
00:05:07
they had nothing left to talk about and
00:05:10
that's why people who match on these
00:05:12
apps often don't meet in person at all
00:05:15
the boom and bust theory because of the
00:05:17
strangers on a train effect
00:05:19
boom people on these apps get really
00:05:21
close really fast because they open up
00:05:23
to each other
00:05:25
but they don't know the other person
00:05:27
well enough yet
00:05:28
to give them the trust that they need to
00:05:30
hold and sustain their information
00:05:33
and that causes the relationship to bust
00:05:36
so what does it take to go from matching
00:05:39
on these apps
00:05:40
to actually meeting in person is it
00:05:43
attractiveness
00:05:44
what job they have or is it something
00:05:47
even more shallow
00:05:48
well an italian study actually assessed
00:05:51
people on dating apps
00:05:52
and found that they were more likely to
00:05:54
respond to each other's messages if they
00:05:56
were equal in attractiveness
00:05:58
but in the skype study that i mentioned
00:06:00
earlier people preferred dates who were
00:06:02
more attractive than them
00:06:05
so this is another problem that online
00:06:07
dating has created for us
00:06:09
we can't fall in love with people based
00:06:11
off their personalities anymore
00:06:13
they have to pass the attraction test
00:06:15
first
00:06:17
in real life women have been found to
00:06:19
care more about job status and wealth
00:06:21
and men have been found to care more
00:06:23
about physical attractiveness because it
00:06:25
shows the women to be more
00:06:26
healthy and therefore fertile but online
00:06:29
this all gets thrown out the window
00:06:32
a youtube experiment set up two tinder
00:06:35
profiles of a man and a woman
00:06:37
both equal in attractiveness both with
00:06:39
identical discovery settings
00:06:42
they then swiped right on a thousand
00:06:43
people and a day later the mail account
00:06:46
had
00:06:46
216 matches whereas the female account
00:06:50
had 701
00:06:53
so the match rate of the female account
00:06:55
was 43 percent
00:06:57
higher than the one of the male
00:07:00
so their significant gender disparity
00:07:03
when it comes to the importance of
00:07:05
physical attractiveness on dating apps
00:07:08
and as i said this is different in real
00:07:10
life where personality
00:07:12
makes a huge difference in fact in
00:07:15
another
00:07:16
study a man and a woman met their tinder
00:07:18
matches wearing a fat suit
00:07:20
four out of five of the men took off
00:07:24
when they saw the women whereas all of
00:07:26
the women
00:07:27
stayed and got to know the man
00:07:30
so what these studies have shown us is
00:07:32
that online
00:07:33
women care more about superficial
00:07:36
attractiveness
00:07:37
whereas in person it's the men
00:07:40
and the algorithms of these dating apps
00:07:42
don't take into account the differences
00:07:45
between what each gender prefers even if
00:07:48
it doesn't represent what we prefer in
00:07:50
real life
00:07:52
are our virtual preferences just
00:07:54
completely different to the ones we have
00:07:56
in person
00:07:58
and are they successful in helping us
00:08:01
find a long-term partner
00:08:04
well in america alone it's been found
00:08:06
that only 12 percent of the people who
00:08:09
use these apps have found committed
00:08:11
relationships from them
00:08:14
there's actually no compelling evidence
00:08:17
that the mathematical algorithms of
00:08:19
these dating apps work
00:08:22
and there's also no evidence that they
00:08:24
lead to more romantic outcomes
00:08:26
than those created by relationships
00:08:28
formed elsewhere
00:08:30
not only do these algorithms leave out
00:08:32
things such as personality
00:08:34
they don't take into account the
00:08:36
differences between
00:08:38
each person on these dating apps and
00:08:40
they don't take into account how each
00:08:42
relationship will develop over time
00:08:44
so these algorithms were only created
00:08:47
for a short-term
00:08:49
initial attraction
00:08:53
when it comes down to it everywhere we
00:08:56
go
00:08:57
people are looking for love think about
00:09:00
it
00:09:00
how many times have you been in a
00:09:02
grocery store made eye contact with
00:09:04
someone
00:09:05
and automatically been convinced that
00:09:07
they're the love of your life
00:09:09
a movie no matter the genre always tends
00:09:13
to include a romantic plot
00:09:15
and this seems to be reflected in our
00:09:17
lives too
00:09:19
so it was only a matter of time before
00:09:22
romance hit the internet
00:09:24
in fact i've actually been asked out a
00:09:26
number of times on linkedin
00:09:29
true story but here's the paradox
00:09:33
has the internet ruined romance
00:09:37
or simply made it easier
00:09:40
what will the future hold will romantic
00:09:44
tales be turned into stories of
00:09:46
meaningless hookups
00:09:48
will cinderella become tinderella
00:09:52
or do we just need to search for that
00:09:54
faithful 12
00:09:59
so who knows whether i would have made
00:10:01
it to the finale of that dating show
00:10:03
had our first date been in person who
00:10:06
knows
00:10:07
whether a virtual relationship might
00:10:09
boom or bust
00:10:11
but what we do know is that by 2035
00:10:15
the uk has been predicted to reach its
00:10:17
tipping point
00:10:18
with more than 50 percent of
00:10:20
relationships beginning online
00:10:23
online dating has changed the
00:10:26
relationship game
00:10:30
forever
00:10:32
thank you
