It's a Match! : Exploring dating apps and the self-presentation of users

Dating apps have become increasing common in the last few years. As the popularity of online dating increased, the associated level of negative stigma seemed to shrink, Part of this change in attitude could be due to the evolution of dating sites into dating apps, reaching users in the private space of their smartphones and allowing them for real-time interactions with their contacts. The emergence of LBRTD (Location-Based-Real-Time-Dating) apps, such as Tinder, has enhanced this mechanism, employing the distance between users as a key variable on the basis of which significant others can be found. In this contribution, we explore how motivations, demographic characteristics and psychological influences affect Dutch students' self-presentation via photos on Tinder. To do so, we counducted an online survey with 156 respondents and applied structural equation modeling to the data. We find that Tinder self-presentation is affected by users' self-esteem (low self-esteem leads to higher levels of false and ideal self-presentation, as opposed to authentic self-presentation), their gender (female users reveal higher levels of ideal self-presentation than male ones) and their motivations to use the app (romantic motives leads to more authentic self-presentation).