Swipe Instead of a Face: How We Forgot How to See Real People
Author: Svetlana Sheptunova, analytical psychologist
I see this every day in my practice. People have gotten used to speed. Swipe right — like, swipe left — pass. A decision in a second. My clients tell me: they already mentally “swipe” each other in real life. Something slightly off — immediately to the left. Zero patience. Because the phone is always at hand, and the next option is just a couple of clicks away.
Numbers: What I Actually See in the Office and in Reports
My clients complain: “I spend hours in these apps, but zero results.” Research confirms this. In 2018, users spent about 90 minutes a day in dating apps. By 2024, this figure dropped to 35 minutes a day. People have burned out.
But even these 35 minutes are no guarantee of results. One service calculated that in Russia, users spend an average of 36 hours of pure time (not counting scrolling through the feed) searching for just one person for a first meeting. 36 hours! That’s almost a full work week. And what’s the result? 73% of such meetings end in nothing. To find a person for a second date, you need to invest an average of 131 hours. Can you imagine? It’s like going on a two-week business trip and coming back empty-handed.
Judging by statistics, the market is collapsing. Why?
Because the mechanism is broken. The largest services have been losing audience for the second year in a row. Mamba lost 5% of active users. Tabor — 12.3%. Beboo — almost 14%. The audience is tired of endless scrolling. And this isn’t just happening here. The global leader Tinder slid from 70 million active users to 50 million in a couple of years. Bumble is laying off employees. I tell my clients: if business is going down, it means the product no longer solves the client’s pain.
We’ve Forgotten How to Trust the Screen
Russian services report: people are tired of superficial communication and want depth. But here’s the paradox. 41% of respondents consider prolonged correspondence before a meeting mandatory. They want control, but this control is killing them.
Why? Because algorithms work against us. You gather information about a person from their photos and messages. But neural networks can already generate both a face and a communication style. On a date, everyone comes with their own imagined image of the partner. The result — disappointment.
We’ve become lonely in a crowd. Over 40% of Russians are currently lonely. At the same time, 45% of respondents admitted that they have at least once looked into their partner’s phone to check who they are messaging. We seek intimacy, but we fear it.
A global study of 50 countries showed a scary thing: people who met online, on average, have lower relationship satisfaction and lower levels of love than those who met in real life. On average worldwide, 16% of couples meet online. Among those who started relationships after 2010, this figure is 21%. And all of them have less love.
Generation Zoomers are dropping out of the game. My young clients (20–25 years old) often say: “I don’t want these apps.” Statistics confirm this. Only 21.2% of Zoomers consider dating services the main way to meet people. They are tired of superficiality.
The Screen Has Become a Refuge Behind Which Sits Fear
My clients — women sit in apps for hours but rarely go on dates. They are scared. There, behind the screen, they control the image, but in live contact, they can face rejection. One said: “I’d rather like 20 more people than go on a date and mess up.” Real meetings — only 10%, the rest just simulate activity. One-time sex: superficiality as a norm. A separate topic — sex without commitment. In conversations with clients (both men and women), they complain that after another “quick contact” they feel emptiness. Because without emotions, it’s just mechanics. But they continue to swipe. Stuck. They want warmth, but can’t get out of their phones.
How I Suggest They Act
Put the phone away for a couple of hours a day. Try meeting people in person — at events, in companies. Reduce time in apps to 15 minutes. And ask yourself: am I really looking for a person or just killing time on swipes? Technology isn’t going anywhere, but you can stop being a slave to the button. A person is not a card in Tinder. And you can’t build relationships on swipes. I tell my clients this directly.
Original material here.