New Study Claims That Men On Tinder Have Lower Self-Esteem, But Go Ahead And Just Keep Racking Up Matches

Tinder is supposed to be the one thing that gets every guy out of his sexual rut and help restore faith that, YES, there is a girl out there for you, you just need to find her. Unfortunately, a new study claims that the app might actually be doing more harm than good when it comes to guys’ self-esteem, though.

According to new research from the University of North Texas, college-age men who use Tinder have lower self-esteem than their peers who aren’t on the “dating” app, with researchers determining that the app is used for “men and women are simply objects to be viewed, rated, used, and disposed of in the Tinder universe.”

Yep, that sounds like the general perception of Tinder, if you ask me.

Examining 70 women and 32 men, the study found that men were actually more emotionally distressed than women, with researchers determining that a potential reason for this is because guys swipe right 46 percent of the time, where girls are more choosy, only swiping right 14 percent of the time.

This all makes sense, of course, when considering the one element of Tinder that’s used to determine a match is looks, which TIME magazine referenced in their report on this topic.

Compared to people who weren’t on the dating app, Tinder users had lower levels of self-worth, reported being less satisfied with their faces and looks and were more ashamed of their bodies. They were also more likely to think of themselves as sexual objects, to internalize societal ideals about beauty, to compare their appearances to others and to constantly monitor how they looked, the researchers found.

This was true for men as well as women. “If they used Tinder, they reported more negative scores on all of our measures,” says Trent Petrie, co-author of the paper and professor in the psychology department at the University of North Texas. “We thought that was pretty interesting, given the fact that gender usually plays a role in how women and men respond to these types of questionnaires.” Women, it turns out, usually feel the worst about themselves.

Some may think that, because online dating eliminates the fear of approaching a stranger in person and is a bridge to start a conversation, it’s a way to deal with rejection. But, as this study proves, even on Tinder, guys and girls who get ignored, blocked or turned down take it just as hard, leaving them dejected and lonely—which is definitely interesting to think about.

[H/T Complex]

Nick Dimengo avatar
Nick's a Sr. Editor for BroBible, mainly relying on his Sports Encyclopedia-like mind to write about things. He's also the co-host of the BroBible podcast "We Run This," and can be seen sweating his ass off while frequently running 10+ miles around Seattle.