精读系列│BBC:你是否陷入了约会app的倦怠循环?

你是否陷入了约会应用倦怠的循环？

下载、倦怠、删除、重复。

科学研究表明，约会应用的用户会陷入一种可预测且危险的模式。

以下是你正深陷其中的迹象，以及如何挣脱。

文本链接.docx

Two years ago, Fernanda R deleted the dating apps and swore she was done. Then her friends started pairing off with partners they met online, everyone telling the same hopeful stories. So, a few weeks ago, the 29-year-old international affairs advisor – who asked to withhold her last name – decided to try again and re-downloaded a few dating apps. “I thought maybe things would be different this time,” Fernanda says. She was wrong.

Soon she was juggling multiple conversations, obsessively checking her phone, buckling under the constant pressure to be witty and interesting. “It just feels overwhelming,” says Fernanda. “There’s this invisible pressure. It starts to take away from your real friendships, your work.”

The algorithm flooded her with people, but nothing clicked. Fernanda couldn’t stop wondering what that said about her. She felt lonelier than she had in two years of being single.

两年前，费尔南达·R 删除了所有约会应用，并发誓再也不用了。后来，她的朋友们纷纷与网上认识的人结为伴侣，每个人都讲述着同样充满希望的故事。于是，几周前，这位要求不公开姓氏的29岁国际事务顾问决定再试一次，重新下载了几个约会应用。“我以为这次可能会不一样，”费尔南达说。她错了。

很快，她就在应付多场对话，痴迷地查看手机，承受着时刻要保持风趣和有趣的无形压力。“这感觉让人不堪重负，”费尔南达说。“有一种无形的压力。它开始蚕食你真正的友谊和你的工作。”

算法塞给她大量的人选，但没有一个能擦出火花。费尔南达不禁想，这说明了什么关于自己的问题。她感觉比两年单身以来的任何时候都更孤独。

【释义】

• burnout：/ˈbɜːrnaʊt/；过度劳累引起的身体或精神衰竭，职业倦怠。
• pairing off：（使）结成对，（使）配成一对。
• withhold：/wɪðˈhəʊld/；拒绝给予，扣留，隐瞒。
• juggle：/ˈdʒʌɡəl/；玩杂耍（连续抛接物体）；尽力同时应付几件事或几种关系。
• obsessive：着迷的，强迫性的。
• buckle：/ˈbʌkəl/；（使）弯曲，变形；（人或精神）崩溃，屈服。
• witty：/ˈwɪti/；措辞巧妙的，诙谐的，幽默的。
• algorithm：/ˈælɡərɪðəm/；（计算机）算法，运算步骤。

Fernanda’s story is one I’ve heard hundreds of times, and there’s a name for it: dating app burnout. Research suggests apps may produce a recognisable pattern in their users, one that looks less like dating and more like effects of an unmanageably stressful job – exhaustion, cynicism and a creeping sense that nothing you do is working, and maybe the problem is you. Left alone, it gets worse. Studies link dating apps to higher rates of depression, anxiety and loneliness, with heavier costs on people who were already struggling beforehand.

“It seems as if the goals of the apps are fundamentally incongruent with the goals of users,” says Liesel Sharabi, director of the Relationships and Technology Lab at Arizona State University in the US. If people were getting great recommendations and going on incredible dates, they’d be getting off the apps for good. “But that’s not what’s happening. People are just constantly cycling on and off.”

If summer has you back online looking for love, you might be in that loop right now. The good news is once you recognise it, there are concrete steps you can take to protect yourself.

费尔南达的故事我已经听过几百遍了，并且有一个名称：约会应用倦怠。研究表明，这些应用可能会让用户产生一种可识别的模式，这种模式看起来不像约会，更像是一种难以承受的紧张工作所带来的影响——疲惫、愤世嫉俗，以及一种你做什么都不奏效、问题可能出在你自己身上的渐进感。放任不管，情况会变得更糟。研究将约会应用与更高的抑郁、焦虑和孤独发生率联系起来，对那些之前就已处境艰难的人来说，代价更大。

“似乎这些应用的目标与用户的目标根本不一致，”亚利桑那州立大学关系与技术实验室主任莉泽尔·沙拉比说。如果人们能收到很棒的推荐，进行精彩的约会，他们就会永远离开这些应用。“但实际情况并非如此。人们只是在不断地来回循环，上线又下线。”

如果这个夏天让你回到网上寻找爱情，你可能现在就身处那个循环中。好消息是，一旦你意识到这一点，你可以采取一些具体的措施来保护自己。

【释义】

• cynicism：/ˈsɪnɪsɪzəm/；愤世嫉俗，犬儒主义，不相信人的真诚。
• creeping：逐渐蔓延的，悄悄增强的（感觉）。
• beforehand：/bɪˈfɔːrhænd/；预先，事先。
• incongruent：/ɪnˈkɒŋɡruənt/；不协调的，不一致的。
• concrete：/ˈkɒŋkriːt/；具体的，实在的；混凝土的。

Are you trapped in the burnout cycle?

A 2024 study followed hundreds of dating apps users over the course of three months. "We ended up finding over time, people using dating apps were experiencing burnout across the board," Sharabi says. Which makes sense. If you're stuck on the app, you haven't found what you're looking for (unless you just want hookups). But the experience was far more severe than frustration.

The word "burnout" gets thrown around so much it's started to lose its meaning, but it has a more formal, psychological definition. The classic inventory measures burnout in three categories: emotional exhaustion, cynicism (or depersonalisation) and inefficiency.

Academics first described this phenomenon in high-pressure work environments, but research has extended it to other parts of life. According to Sharabi, you can see it in online daters.

Emotional exhaustion is simple: if swiping leaves you feeling unmotivated, defeated and tired, that could be a sign of burnout. You're experiencing cynicism and depersonalisation when the profiles blend together, Sharabi says, and interactions stop feeling human. Inefficiency, in this context, is a creeping conviction that nothing you do on the app is going to work, either because you're bad at it or there's something wrong with you.

你是否陷入了倦怠循环？

2024年的一项研究在三个月的时间里追踪了数百名约会应用用户。“我们最终发现，随着时间的推移，使用约会应用的人普遍都经历了倦怠，”沙拉比说。这很合理。如果你困在应用上，你还没找到自己想要的东西（除非你只想约炮）。但这种体验远不止是挫败感，要严重得多。

“倦怠”这个词被滥用，已经快要失去其本意了，但它有一个更正式的心理定义。经典的测量指标从三个类别来衡量倦怠：情绪耗竭、愤世嫉俗（或人格解体）和低效能感。

学者们最初是在高压工作环境中描述这种现象，但研究已将其扩展到生活的其他方面。根据沙拉比的说法，你可以在在线约会者身上看到这些。

情绪耗竭很简单：如果滑动屏幕让你感到没有动力、挫败和疲惫，那可能是倦怠的迹象。当那些个人资料开始混在一起，沙拉比说，互动不再感觉像人与人之间的交流时，你就在经历愤世嫉俗和人格解体。在这种语境下，低效能感是一种逐渐加深的确信，即你在应用上做的任何事都不会奏效，要么是因为你不擅长，要么是你自己有问题。

【释义】

• across the board：全体，全面，一律。
• hookup：/ˈhʊkʌp/；（非正式）勾搭，随意性关系；连接，接洽。
• inventory：/ˈɪnvəntəri/；（心理学）测量工具，量表；清单，目录，库存；盘点。
• depersonalisation：/diːˌpɜːsənəlaɪˈzeɪʃən/；（心理学术语）人格解体，非人化；感觉与自身或外界脱离。
• swip：/swaɪp/；滑动，挥击，刷（卡）。
• profile：/ˈprəʊfaɪl/；侧面，轮廓；人物简介，档案；概况。
• conviction：/kənˈvɪkʃən/；定罪；深信，信念。

"I started on the app feeling like I want to be respectful because at the end of the day, we're all just human beings," says Madeleine D, who works in marketing for a tech company and also requested to keep her full name off the record. "But the more time I spent, the more blind I became about it, like I didn't really care about these people. I hated that about myself, because the one thing I promised myself was that I would at least show decency and respect."

It's easy to write this off as the predictable grumbling of singles in their late 20s. Dating is hard, and bars aren't so great either. But research suggests something more serious.

Sharabi led a recent meta-analysis which aggregated 17 years' worth of studies covering about 26,000 people. The study found dating app users reported significantly worse psychological health than non-users, including depression, anxiety, emotional dysregulation, loneliness and psychological distress.

Those problems fell harder on people who join dating apps in worse shape to begin with. In theory, Sharabi says the apps are a lifeline for people who find dating hardest: those whose mental health issues make meeting partners in person more difficult. But Sharabi has found those users were the most likely to burn out, and faster. "Those people tended to be especially susceptible," Sharabi says. "It basically exacerbated some of the pre-existing difficulties they had."

玛德琳·D 在一家科技公司从事市场营销工作，她同样要求不公开全名。她说：“刚开始用这个应用时，我的感觉是我想保持尊重，因为说到底，我们都只是普通人。但花的时间越多，我对此就越麻木，好像我根本不在乎这些人。我讨厌自己这一点，因为我向自己承诺过的一件事，就是至少要表现出体面和尊重。”

很容易把这看作是二十多岁单身人士可预见的抱怨。约会是困难的，酒吧也不见得好到哪里去。但研究表明事情可能更严重。

沙拉比最近领导了一项荟萃分析，汇总了长达17年、涵盖约26000人的研究。研究发现，约会应用用户的心理健康状况显著差于非用户，包括抑郁、焦虑、情绪失调、孤独和心理困扰。

这些问题对那些一开始就状态更差的人来说打击更大。理论上，沙拉比说，这些应用对那些觉得约会最困难的人来说是一条生命线：那些因心理健康问题而更难在线下认识伴侣的人。但沙拉比发现，这些用户最有可能倦怠，而且倦怠得更快。“那些人似乎特别容易受到影响，”沙拉比说。“这基本上加剧了他们之前就有的一些困难。”

【释义】

• blind：/blaɪnd/；失明的，盲的；看不见的；盲目的，缺乏判断力的，麻木不仁的。
• write…off：注销（坏账等），报废；认定…不重要，忽视，将…轻蔑地认定为。
• grumble：/ˈɡrʌmbəl/；抱怨，发牢骚；发出隆隆声。
• aggregate：/ˈæɡrɪɡət/；集合，总计，聚集。
• worth：/wɜːrθ/；价值，（十七年）的量。a week’s worth of：一周的量。
• shape：/ʃeɪp/；形状，外形；状态，健康状况。
• susceptible：/səˈseptəbəl/；易受影响的，敏感的；易患病的。
• exacerbate：/ɪɡˈzæsərbeɪt/；使恶化，使加重。

The blame game

The dating app industry doesn’t want its users burning out. “As society and daters’ needs continue to evolve, we remain committed to helping people make meaningful connections and turn those connections into great dates,” a Hinge spokesperson tells the BBC. Hinge says the app is designed to stay in the background of your life, and the company focused on using feedback from daters to improve the experience.

“Dating has always kind of sucked, and I think it’s really easy to blame the technology,” Sharabi says. At the same time, she thinks the apps amplify the misery in specific ways.

One is gamification. Dating apps are built around fast, frictionless gestures and inconsistent rewards. Many complain the structure is more like a slot machine than courtship, and users can get stuck pulling the lever long after the fun wears off. “The swiping gives you a high,” says Karen Cornejo, an office administrator in Los Angeles. “And then everything else just doesn’t.” By the time a match actually wants to meet, the rush is gone. “I’m not even interested at that point anymore,” Cornejo says, and the process leaves her feeling flat.

Dallas Koelling, a writer and comedian in Brooklyn who has gone on and off a couple of apps for years, puts it more bluntly: “Getting the notification that I’ve gotten a like on Hinge feels like being threatened with a gun.”

Then there’s the hidden labour. “If you lived in, like, Shakespeare’s England, you might never even meet the amount of people who you see in one day swiping on Hinge,” Koelling says. Dating apps dramatically expand the pool of potential partners. That’s what makes them great, in fact, but the abundance can turn dating into work.

指责的游戏

约会应用行业并不希望其用户倦怠。Hinge的一位发言人对 BBC 表示：“随着社会和约会者需求的不断变化，我们始终致力于帮助人们建立有意义的联系，并将这些联系转化为美好的约会。”Hinge 称，这款应用的设计初衷是留在你生活的背景中，公司专注于利用约会者的反馈来改善体验。

“约会从来就有点糟糕，我认为很容易把这归咎于技术，”沙拉比说。与此同时，她认为这些应用以特定的方式放大了这种痛苦。

其一是游戏化。约会应用围绕快速、无摩擦的手势和不确定的奖励而构建。许多人抱怨说，这种结构更像一台老虎机，而不是求爱，用户可能在乐趣消退很久之后仍被困在拉杆中。“滑动屏幕让你兴奋，”洛杉矶的办公室行政人员凯伦·科内霍说。“然后其他的一切就都不行了。”等到匹配对象真的想见面时，那种兴奋感已经消失了。“到那时我甚至都不再感兴趣了，”科内霍说，这个过程让她感到平淡无味。

布鲁克林的作家兼喜剧演员达拉斯·凯林多年来反复安装又卸载过几款应用，他更直白地说：“收到Hinge上有人喜欢我的通知，感觉就像被人用枪威胁一样。”

然后还有隐藏的劳作。“比如说，如果你生活在莎士比亚时代的英格兰，你可能一辈子都遇不到你在Hinge上一天滑动屏幕所看到的人数，”凯林说。约会应用极大地扩展了潜在伴侣的数量。事实上，这正是它们的优点，但选择的丰富性可能把约会变成工作。

【释义】

• amplify：/ˈæmplɪfaɪ/；放大（声音等），增强，详述。
• misery：/ˈmɪzəri/；悲惨，痛苦，贫苦；不幸。
• gamification：/ˌɡeɪmɪfɪˈkeɪʃən/；游戏化，把任务或服务设计得像游戏以增加参与度。
• frictionless：/ˈfrɪkʃənləs/；无摩擦的，没有阻力的。
• inconsistent：/ˌɪnkənˈsɪstənt/；不一致的，不稳定的，前后矛盾的。
• slot machine：（投币式）老虎机，自动售货机。Slot:/slɒt/;狭缝，投币口。
• courtship：/ˈkɔːrtʃɪp/;求偶期，求爱，恋爱期.
• rush：/rʌʃ/;匆忙，冲；一阵激动/快感。
• comedian：/kəˈmiːdiən/；喜剧演员，谐星。
• blunt：/blʌnt/；钝的；直率的，生硬的，直言不讳的。

“It feels like a second full-time job that I have to do on my lunch break or after work,” Madeleine says. “I don’t want to be glued to my phone. And for social media, I’ve gotten a lot better at putting it down. But with dating, there’s this feeling that the next person you swipe on could be the person you end up marrying. There’s this endless hope that it feels like dating apps prey on.”

The bottomless sea of faces also contributes to the feelings of burnout, Sharabi says, especially because a profile can only tell you so much. “You get trapped in an endless cycle of profile to dead-end conversation to dead-end date, and then you’re right back where you started,” she says.

On top of all that, the structural tension is hard to ignore. Dating apps really do want users to find matches. We’d all stop using them if that never happened. But they’re also a business, one that makes almost all its money on subscriptions and paid features, which means they lose money if people quit. For years, dating app users have been telling me they feel manipulated, and that apps withhold the best matches and exploit their emotions to keep them tapping and swiping. (Dating app companies categorically deny this. But the algorithms that run them are a mystery.)

In 2024, a class-action lawsuit accused Match Group – the giant conglomerate that owns Tinder, Hinge and many other popular dating apps – of designing its apps to be addictive and profiting from compulsive use rather than from helping people find partners. Match Group dismissed the claims as “ridiculous”. The case was later sent to arbitration. (Match Group did not respond to a request for comment).

“The vast majority of our work focuses on improving the free experience on Hinge, with less than 15% of our community using paid features,” a Hinge spokesperson says. “Ultimately, our success depends on people having positive experiences on the app, meeting someone meaningful, and ultimately recommending Hinge to others.”

“感觉就像第二份全职工作，我必须在午休时或下班后去做，”玛德琳说。“我不想粘在手机上。对于社交媒体，我已经能更好地放下了。但对于约会，会有一种感觉，觉得你下一个滑动到的人可能就是最终与你结婚的人。这种无尽的希望，感觉像是约会应用在利用它。”

沙拉比说，无穷无尽的面孔海洋也加剧了倦怠感，尤其是因为一份个人资料能告诉你的信息有限。“你被困在一个无休止的循环中：从资料到没有下文的对话，再到没有下文的约会，然后你直接又回到了起点，”她说。

最重要的是，这种结构性的张力难以忽视。约会应用确实希望用户能找到匹配对象。如果这从未发生，我们都会停止使用它们。但它们也是一门生意，几乎全部收入都来自订阅和付费功能，这意味着如果人们退出，它们就会亏损。多年来，约会应用的用户一直告诉我，他们觉得自己被操纵了，觉得应用在扣留最佳的匹配对象，并利用他们的情绪来让他们不停地点击和滑动。（约会应用公司断然否认这一点。但运行这些应用的算法是个谜。）

2024年，一起集体诉讼指控拥有 Tinder、Hinge 等众多流行约会应用的巨头 Match Group 将其应用设计得具有成瘾性，并从强迫性使用中获利，而不是帮助人们找到伴侣。Match Group 称这些指控“荒谬”。该案后来被提交仲裁。（Match Group 未回应置评请求。）

“我们绝大部分工作都专注于改善 Hinge 的免费体验，我们社区中使用付费功能的用户不到15%，”Hinge的一位发言人表示。“归根结底，我们的成功取决于用户在应用上拥有积极体验，遇到有意义的人，并最终向他人推荐 Hinge。”

【释义】

• prey on：捕食；欺凌，利用。Prey：/preɪ/；猎物，受害者；捕食。
• categorical：/ˌkætəˈɡɔːrɪkəl/；明确的，绝对的，无条件的。
• class-action lawsuit：集体诉讼，共同诉讼。Lawsuit:/ˈlɔːsuːt/；诉讼案件。
• conglomerate：/kənˈɡlɒmərət/；名词，企业集团；混合物；动词，使结集成群。
• addictive：/əˈdɪktɪv/；使人上瘾的，沉迷的。
• dismiss：/dɪsˈmɪs/；解雇，开除；不予考虑，摒弃。
• arbitration：/ˌɑːrbɪˈtreɪʃən/；仲裁，公断。

Four ways to break the burnout cycle

The apps are designed to keep users swiping, and when unchecked, swiping is what wears people down. But Sharabi says there are some simple steps you can follow to avoid the symptoms of burnout and keep your mental health in check.

1. First, don't make the apps your only outlet.

"I never discourage people from using them," Sharabi says. "But they shouldn't be the only way you're trying to meet people, and that takes some of the pressure off." Join a run club, ask a friend to set you up and put yourself in rooms where you might meet someone the old-fashioned way. That way a discouraging conversation on an app isn't the only thing your week is riding on.

2. Swipe with intention.

Mindless swiping can swallow hours and leave you with nothing to show for it. Sharabi recommends treating the apps the way some people now treat social media. "Say I'm going to look at the app for this amount of time, this many times a week, and I'm done," she says. Notice your mood and stop before the exhaustion sets in, so you end each session energised rather than hollowed out.

3. Lean on your friends.

Burnout thrives in isolation, and much of the swiping that produces it happens alone. Researchers who study burnout have long found that social support cushions the blow; talking through the ups and downs with people who know you can keep a bad week from becoming a bad spiral.

4. Know when to quit.

Dating can be discouraging, but if the apps are eroding your optimism, and you put down your phone feeling like you're never going to find someone, that's the signal to step away entirely. "All of those things could be a sign that maybe you should just take a total break," Sharabi says.

打破倦怠循环的四种方法

这些应用的设计目的就是让用户不停地滑动屏幕，如果不加约束，这种滑动正是消耗人们的原因。但沙拉比说，你可以遵循一些简单的步骤来避免倦怠症状，并保持心理健康。

1. 首先，不要让应用成为你唯一的渠道。

“我从不劝阻人们使用它们，”沙拉比说。“但它们不应该是你尝试认识人的唯一方式，这样能减轻一些压力。”加入一个跑步俱乐部，请朋友帮忙介绍，让自己置身于可能用传统方式遇到某人的场合。这样，应用上一次令人沮丧的对话就不会是你那一周唯一的指望了。

2. 有意识地滑动。

无意识的滑动可能会吞噬数小时，却毫无收获。沙拉比建议像现在一些人对待社交媒体那样对待这些应用。“告诉自己，我这个星期只会在这个时间段花这么多时间看这个应用，然后就不看了，”她说。注意自己的情绪，在疲惫感袭来之前停下来，这样你每次结束使用时会感到精力充沛，而不是被掏空。

3. 依靠你的朋友。

倦怠在孤立中滋生，而许多导致倦怠的滑动行为都是独自完成的。研究倦怠的研究人员早就发现，社会支持可以缓冲冲击；与了解你的人谈论起起伏伏，可以防止糟糕的一周演变成糟糕的恶性循环。

4. 知道何时退出。

约会可能让人气馁，但如果这些应用正在侵蚀你的乐观情绪，你放下手机时感觉自己永远找不到那个人，那就是完全退出的信号。“所有这些都可能是你应该彻底休息一下的迹象，”沙拉比说。

【释义】

• wear down：磨掉，磨薄；使逐渐屈服，使疲乏。
• set sb up with someone：介绍某人与某人约会。
• ride on：骑在…上；依赖于，赌注于。
• energise：/ˈenədʒaɪz/；使充满活力，激励；给…提供能量。
• hollow out：挖空，掏空；使空虚。
• cushion：/ˈkʊʃən/；垫子，坐垫；缓冲物；减轻冲击。
• bad spiral：/bæd ˈspaɪərəl/；恶性循环，螺旋式下降。spiral：/ˈspaɪərəl/；螺旋；不断上升或下降。
• erode：/ɪˈrəʊd/；侵蚀，腐蚀；逐渐损害。

There are signs the dating app business is aware of these concerns. The industry could be in trouble. Paid subscribers are dropping like flies, and there's some indication that younger people are keen to find love offline. Battered by what executives call "swipe fatigue", dating apps are working to reinvent themselves.

Bumble is abandoning the swipe altogether, joining Hinge and Tinder in a new embrace of more AI-driven matchmaking. Tinder's CEO recently announced plans to embrace in-person events in an effort to reshape the app. A Hinge spokesperson says creating a "less lonely world" is the company's core mission, and it's working to create supportive communal spaces online and off. Whether any of it works, or whether it's just a fresh way to keep people tapping, remains to be seen.

For now, people caught in the cycle are left to manage it themselves. Madeleine is staying off the apps for now, though she doesn't expect it to last. In a world where so many relationships begin online, opting out can feel like opting out of romance entirely. "I doubt this will be more than a break," she says. "But dating can be fun, when you remove how seriously some people take it." Then, after a beat: "I just wish we had a better way to do this."

有迹象表明，约会应用行业意识到了这些担忧。这个行业可能陷入了困境。付费用户数量急剧下降，而且有些迹象显示，年轻人热衷于在线下寻找爱情。在受到高管们所称的“滑动疲劳”打击后，约会应用正在努力重塑自我。

Bumble 正在完全放弃滑动功能，与 Hinge 和 Tinder 一起，转向更多由人工智能驱动的匹配方式。Tinder 的首席执行官最近宣布计划引入线下活动，力图重塑这款应用。Hinge 的一位发言人表示，创建一个“不那么孤独的世界”是公司的核心使命，它正在努力创建支持性的线上和线下社区空间。这些举措是否有效，还是只是一种让人们保持点击的新方式，还有待观察。

目前，困在这个循环中的人们只能自己应对。玛德琳现在暂时远离了这些应用，尽管她预计这不会持续太久。在一个如此多恋爱关系始于线上的世界里，选择退出可能感觉像是完全放弃了浪漫。“我怀疑这不过是一次休息，”她说。“但如果你消除了一些人那种过于严肃的态度，约会还是可以很有趣的。”然后，她停顿了一下说：“我只是希望我们有更好的方式来做这件事。”

【释义】

• batter：/ˈbætər/；连续猛击；殴打；（新闻）抨击。
• fatigue：/fəˈtiːɡ/；疲劳，劳累；金属疲劳。