Why we need a dating app that understands Nash’s equilibrium
https://qz.com/996851/why-we-need-a-dating-app-that-understands-nashs-equilibrium/
With dating apps growing in popularity and usage, it is important to understand how they work, especially if one is interested in maximizing their own opportunities for romantic success on the app. Dating apps in the United States have roughly a 3:2 ratio between males and females users. Furthermore, studies have shown that men are approximately twice as active in usage as women. This imbalance means that the attention of women is often a hot commodity on these apps – many men on Tinder feel they need to put in extra effort to get matches. On Tinder especially, many men adopt extreme strategies to get matches, often in the form of swiping right (indicating interest) in every woman that comes up on their Tinder feed.
If game theory is applied, Tinder models a “non co-operative market with shared resources”. The shared resource in this example is a female user’s attention. Small perturbations within the balance of Tinder can lead to massive changes to individual incentives. The imbalance between men and women usage of the app upsets a favorable Nash equilibrium, meaning that the system tends toward a mutually bad Nash equilibrium state. This is reflected in how women often get bombarded with “low-quality” matches on Tinder, while men often must swipe right incessantly to get an average number of matches. The presence of this unfavorable Nash equilibrium state indicates that Tinder is increasingly difficult to find success on. Imbalances in the number of each type of players in this game wildly shifts power away from the men.
This article suggests that this issue could be overcome by men becoming more selective on dating apps. This would perhaps move the system towards a more favorable Nash equilibrium, where both men and women can secure a moderate number of matches without unnecessary effort or frustration.