Is There Something Missing? Self-Presentation Practices on

Tinder

Dr. Janelle WardDepartment of Media and

CommunicationErasmus University Rotterdam

A Tinder primer

• A matchmaking mobile app (launched Oct. 2012)• 50 million global users; 6 billion

matches• Tinder profiles: select Facebook photos,

text, location, shared friends/interests• Users “swipe left” on those they don’t

like, or “swipe right” on potential matches

A Tinder primer

A Tinder primer

• Tinder users log in an average of 11 times a day and spend 7 - 9 minutes “swiping” during a single session

• Women browse for 8.5 minutes versus 7.2 for men (New York Times, 30 October 2014)

Self-presentation (Goffman, 1959)

• Two key processes (Leary & Kowalski 1990):

– Impression motivation: how much people are motivated to control how others see them

– Impression construction: choosing an impression to create and deciding precisely how to do so

Self-presentation online

• Control (Ellison et al., 2006)

• Proximity (Blackwell et al., 2014)

• Desired impression (Toma & Hancock, 2010)

What are the self-presentation practices of

Tinder users?

• RQ1: What are Tinder users’ motivations for using the app?

• RQ2: How do Tinder users choose their profile photos and text?

• RQ3: How do Tinder users choose their matches?

Method

• 21 semi-structured interviews conducted Sept-Dec 2014 (11 men, 10 women, ages 19-52)

RQ1: What are Tinder users’ motivations for

using the app?

RQ2: How do Tinder users choose their profile photos and text?

RQ3: How do Tinder users choose their matches?

Discussion/Future research

• Discussion: – Control; proximity; desired impression

• Future research:– Self-disclosure – Female/male differences

Thank you!

• Email: ward@eshcc.eur.nl• The project online:–https://twitter.com/missingsome47 –facebook.com/missingsome47 –istheresomethingmissing.com