I decided to start online dating again, so I put Bumble and Hinge back on my phone. These apps are variable-reward-schedule attention sucks like nothing else; Instagram has nothing on this.
They’re designed to feed you an endless stream of what human beings are most drawn to look at: other people’s faces. And, every once in a while, you come across someone you’re attracted to! (There’s that variable reward.)
As a result, I’m connecting with some lovely people, but… I’m also spending minutes—probably hours—looking at my phone that I’d been gradually reducing before.
Not sure how to solve this problem yet. Using these apps in a different way is probably the answer (short of abandoning them completely), but I have to give it some more thought…
