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Can We Find True Love on Tinder?
A crash course on the neurobiology of love and where applications like Tinder fit in to this complicated picture
When you think about the question “What is love?” The first answer that may come to mind is “baby don’t hurt me… no more.” Despite being the opening phrase of Haddaway’s hit 1990s anthem, this age-old question is one that neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers alike continue to grapple with. Love is a human experience of such great interest due to its inherently complicated nature. Some academics consider it an emotion, but neurologically, the processes that occur when one experiences love are much more complicated than neural processes that occur during other emotions, suggesting that it may be more of a cocktail of emotions that work together to create an incredibly unique neural state. As if understanding and finding love isn’t complicated enough, what happens when we try to foster this complex socioemotional interaction through a simple swipe on our phone? Can those swipes really help catalyze love? How are we attracted to people we’ve never seen in person on Tinder, and why is swiping for hours so easy to do?
