March 23, 2021

I swipe, you swipe

Ever since Tinder launched in 2012, lots of people swipe. Entailing physical uncomfortabilities such as the Tinder Thumb as one of the consequences, swiping turns out to also result in some mental health issues. Something that, unfortunately, the average Millennial is overfamiliar with already. In this blog we’ll go take you through some of the reasons why swiping affects your mental health – and we’ll explain you how breeze, as an alternative dating app, lets you date with no-nonsense at all.

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1. The time that is spent on dating apps is astonishing

We’re getting a dopamine hit when we match with people, so obviously it can create an addictive sense to swipe around in the playing field that has taken on new dimensions in cyberspace. Research shows indeed that Millennials spend around 10 hours a week on dating apps, and amid the coronavirus pandemic it’s probably even more than that. Now, if these hours would be spent having deep meaningful conversations that broaden your horizon and that lead to actually go out and meet somebody, maybe they’d actually serve mood- boosting, right? That is, however, not exactly the case:

2. Half of the matches end up in nothing - or worse

Apparently, around half of the matches end up in dead-end conversations. ‘Ghosting’, aka deciding abruptly not to reply with zero warning or notice, is the new fashionably late. Nobody ever liked it, but it’s become generally accepted. Is it though, acceptable? Not really: the absence of closure can be deeply painful for the person shunned. Which brings us to the next point:

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3. Swiping brings about hurting others and ourselves

Behaviour goes both ways. Swiping through an endless sea of faces invites us to de-personalize people and judge them simply by the way they look. When we as human beings are represented purely by our looks, we start to look at ourselves in a similar way: as an object to be evaluated. This feeling of being objectified is very likely to impact self-esteem and confidence. In fact, studies show that users of traditional dating apps, such as Tinder, reported to be less satisfied with the way they look than non-users. It turns out that the limitless choices that traditional dating apps offer can actually be deteriorating your mental health in multiple ways. Swiping mostly isn’t all fun and games; it intensifies feelings of rejection, affecting one’s self esteem. People that spend all those hours online looking for love, become more likely to experience depression and anxiety.

How breeze isn’t taking a toll on your mental health

With breeze, looking for love isn’t also taking a toll on your mental health. breeze takes online dating offline again. Basically, the only time you should be spending on the breeze app, is for creating a detailed profile of yourself. After that, breeze does the work and presents you daily with two profiles selected by breeze’s algorithm. You can then choose if you’d like to go for a drink. No chatting (read: no ghosting) because breeze sets up a real-life date for you. Because positively engaging with the world outside of your phone is actually critical for your mental health.