Love Apptually: An analysis of how heterosexual users construct, negotiate and use dating apps

Abstract

This thesis focuses on one of the newest trends in the dating arena; mobile dating apps. An internet-facilitated matchmaking service where one can search, initiate, and form connections via an electronic device or smartphone. It has been argued that gender and sexual scripts are a central way in which social actors make sense of themselves and their experiences and behaviour. Similarly, scholarship has identified that social life and technology are mutually constituted. As such, the influx of these new technologies arguably raises important questions about what this means for the construction of gender and sexual scripts, as well as the ways these are entangled with intimate relations and personal life. This study draws on data collected from participant diaries and semi-structured interviews with current and former users of dating apps, to explore how heterosexual users go about constructing, negotiating, and ascribing meaning to dating apps and dating app practice in their everyday lives. The central argument of this thesis is that the meaning ascribed to dating apps and correct use of dating apps, including ways of managing the risks associated with their use, rather than being a highly individualised activity, was highly communitarian. Key words: Gender; Heterosexuality; Intimacy; Technology.