Tackling loneliness in the age of online dating

It was heartening to see Siân Boyle drawing attention to changing attitudes around dating apps, and concerns about loneliness and fertility (Modern dating is broken – and that’s a hidden factor in England’s fertility crisis, 7 November).

I run a research network exploring the ethics of online dating, and have heard many users voice the alienation and hopelessness that they feel in using some dating apps. A broader social conversation about the impact of these products is timely.

Some propose more apps as a solution to loneliness and fertility decline – from Meeno, an app offering AI relationship advice, to Tokyo Futari Story, a Japanese app designed by the Tokyo government to try to reverse declining fertility.

A more diverse ecosystem of dating apps is likely to be beneficial, but these solutions may fail to address, and could even worsen, the isolation that many users experience. Technological change has to be accompanied by efforts to reverse the decline in free-to-use third spaces and the public sphere, as well as moves to improve relationship education.

Young people especially need the skills and capacity to navigate intimacy both online and offline, and we need to make it easier for them to transition between these domains. Technology can only ever be part of the solution.
Dr Luke Brunning
Lecturer in applied ethics, University of Leeds

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