The Truth About Dating Apps | Dr. Paul Eastwick & Dr. Andrew Huberman

Inequality in Dating App Markets

00:00So I don't have a lot to offer about personal experience on apps many years ago but it's been a while is this notion that like everyone you hear this everyone's competing for the same small number of people since when did is everyone thinking that they're supposed to pair up with the same small number of people?

00:16This is like ridiculous. That's like saying everyone's supposed to like the same top three songs even though you might not even like that genre of music. That's that's um insanity. Yeah, the apps absolutely pull for this. So when you look at who gets the right swipes and who receives messages on the apps, it's the most popular people.

00:37I mean, folks have claimed that it's one of the most unequal markets in the world. I mean, it's basically a kleptocracy. The extent to which Yeah, kleptocracy, right? The extent to which it's skewed, right? that there's like, you know, the rich, quote unquote, who have all the, you know, who who get all the all the the right swipes at the top, but regular acquaintanc.

01:05So, you know, one example that I like to use is that I if our job was just to evaluate whether somebody standing in front of us was hot or not, and it was somebody that we like interacted with briefly, and we're making just simple binary judgments, you and I are going to agree about like 2/3 of the time.

01:25So, that's that's better than 50/50, but it's far from 100%. I think actually that would surprise a lot of people. there's a reasonable amount of disagreement there. That's already starting to set the stage for us not necessarily pursuing the most appealing person because if there's disagreement, that means there's a chance that, well, you're going to go for this person, I'm going to go for that person, and it it levels out the playing field somewhat.

01:54I don't think the influence of attractiveness ever goes away, right? There's always going to be an unlevel playing field to some extent, but the more that people spend time together getting to know each other, it reduces some of those, you know, uh th those market forces that give the desirable people all the advantages.

02:16Yeah. The reason junior high school seemed so dreadful in my memory. I mean, I had a good time in junior high school, but it it was largely, at least for me, the fact that people in my peer group, cuz it was a pretty broad age range, were were still um among the guys were hitting puberty at different rates.

02:34Yeah. So, like a game of soccer that at one time was pretty even with respect to who could play well, like suddenly you're playing against what felt like a grown man. There's actually a kid in our town who I don't want to give up his name who I think he went on to I don't ever think he became a professional soccer player, but he was just he was like fully developed by the eighth grade.

02:54He was like facial hair and he was fast and he had like legs like tree trunks and he could move and I mean it was just completely dangerous to have him out on the field with the rest of us, right? And he was respected, adored, admired like and it was very context dependent.

03:07This was the

Romance Story

03:09other thing I was going to say. I think you and I are both scientists. So, coming up, you spent a lot of time in labs. Yeah. I never forget there was a romance in a neighboring lab um that none of us understood. Like none of us understood. That's funny.

03:22And I remember asking my friend who was in this pairing and he said the attraction for him, although she was also attractive, but the the the hook was her prowess at aloquatting. So there's a thing you do with antibodies and labs where they come in and you have to put them into the little things so that it you know you freeze out a little bit and apparent really hard you get good at it but apparently like he walked in one day and she had a bunch of these little tubes stuffed between her fingers and she was just aloquotting really quickly while talking and from

03:52that moment he was just like smitten. That's beautiful. And I'll say they both never heard an example this good. I was like her aloquatting process like it or prowess and I thought to myself like is this like tapping into something? They they actually have children.

04:05He's his professor. They have children together. They seem very happy. I think anyone would say they're both attractive people but their pairing seemed like not predictable by any other external metrics. And the fact that something so specific was the hook Yeah.

04:21and that opened up into what turned out to be a long-standing marriage with kids is kind of wild. It is. But is this uncommon? Because what you described before is kind of like this, like there's something unique that makes it feel like there's a special attraction that indicates something that opens up to a special discussion and then there's this kind of um intimacy, right, that they share around aloquading that was spawned by aloquading.

04:44I don't recommend folks run out and learn how to aloquat in order to like this is not a strategy. [laughter] Um but that's the thing. Thematically it might be, but um so what are your thoughts on something like that? Okay, this is an incredible example and I think if if we're talking

Building Connection

05:00about couples, I think most people would find this idea intuitive that if you know I ask somebody what is what is it that you love about your wife or what is it that you love about your husband? You know, you're going to get a bunch of if you get them talking for long enough, you'll get some idiosyncratic details.

05:17You'll get some stories. I mean, maybe if they're really forthcoming, they'll give you the in jokes and they'll explain the moments that made them feel something special for this person. I think what I'm suggesting is that those moments, the the the creation of a narrative with another person, it goes back earlier than we think.

05:38And that a lot of times what we're doing when we're trying to figure out if we're into somebody, yes, we look at how they look visually and we we take in all that information and it matters a lot. But we're also talking with them, forming little stories.

05:56If you have a little bit of good banter, that means when I see you at the party next week, I'm going to want to sit next to you and see if we can recreate that moment. And that's often where attraction is coming from. I think that's why the apps are so hard because it turns it into an interview where you're trying to impress other people with your traits.

06:15And again, traits are important, but it's like it it's not the life of the thing. The life of the thing is the little stories and moments that two people are sharing and and that's I think something that that people can be doing more with. Do you think that the dynamics on dating apps, the algorithms which are clearly designed to make the companies money?

06:37Yeah. Do you think those are more female driven algorithms or maledriven algorithms? Not meaning who runs the

Dating App Algorithms & Engagement

06:45companies. We know the answer to that for the most part. The question is, do you think that the apps are trying to optimize for more women to come to them or for more men to come to them and stay there? Because the theory is always kind of launch in the opposite direction.

07:00And if that wasn't clear, um I'm just wondering who's who's got the power. My understanding now again the dating apps are hard to decipher because like these companies don't share data with us. I've worked with some matchmaking companies data.

07:16They're more interested in generally in collaborating with scientists because they've they got to make people on dates happy. They don't work on engagement, they work on happy dates, right? So they're more interested in talking to scientists.

07:29But I think when your goal is getting users and getting engagement, what you're probably trying to do is bring more women in, because my understanding is that there's more men on the apps. Yeah, I think so. I what I don't know and I don't know if anybody knows other than the people at these companies is like, okay, but how many of those apps are in use and how many people, you know, regular users?

07:50I'm not sure. So, you got to bring more women in. But again, engagement is the goal, right? I mean, that's what the apps want. They want you spending time on it and then they want you to get the fancier features. So, is that going to be more geared toward men?

08:08It it might be, but I'm kind of speculating here. I expect that when you're trying to create an app for heterosexual men and women, you're going to have to somehow marry those two challenges. And look, one of the bigger

Evolutionary Biology & Swiping Behavior

08:26gender differences that we see in the whole realm of sex and relationships is in swiping behavior. The fact that women will swipe yes on like 5% of the men they see, but men swipe yes at about 50/50. But that fits the kind of evolutionary quote unquote narrative.

08:45Like men being less selective, wanting to spread their their DNA, this kind of thing. I mean to my mind that whole thing around like medo spread their DNA okay like I believe in in evolutionary biology sure but there's a lot of modern features that make like accountability for offspring and things like it's not like men can run around just having kids with anyone and and afford all of that right it's I mean you know we were talking earlier there sort of like two models there's like the there's like the genus Khan ideal within this evolutionary biology model and then there's you know,

09:20kind of like where are we now? I mean, I don't think anyone, with the exception of some very wealthy people who who have kids with lots and lots of people and clearly can afford it, I don't think anyone's thinking they're going to go out and just have kids with as many people as they possibly can.

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