Workday Swiping Is Rising as Daters Favor Quick Apps

Workplaces have become a popular “swipe zone” for dating apps, according to a new Hily survey. Ninety-two percent of the 1,700 Gen Z and millennial Americans surveyed by Hily said they’ve swiped, flirted, and matched with potential dates on company time. 

Dr. Sabrina Romanoff, a Harvard-trained clinical psychologist and relationship expert at Hily, told DatingNews that the increased presence of dating apps in the workplace points to “a shift in how people are primed to relate to each other.” 

Nowadays, singles are more likely to engage in dating apps the way they would CandyCrush: as a time killer or a boredom crusher, rather than as a productive way to invest in their love life. 

“Just as slack messaging has replaced water cooler banter, dating app conversations have replaced mid-day coffee shop trips or smoke breaks,” Dr. Romanoff said. 

The stats speak for themselves: Hily found that more than half of millennials (57%) check their dating apps during their lunch break, 35% when they should be working or studying, and a not insignificant 5% during Zoom meetings. 

But how frequently one checks their dating app is different from the total time they engage with the app. Swiping is losing its priority status and is increasingly relegated to something people do in their downtime: during lunch, snack breaks, drawn-out meetings, and even quick bathroom trips. 

Daters Want Apps With Low-Key, High-Impact Design 

Dr. Romanoff assured DatingNews that this shift has less to do with a lack of professionalism and more to do with the way modern singles socialize. 

“Swiping at work is the new norm because of narrowing social circles of singles, fewer opportunities to naturally connect with others in real life, and consequently, lunch hours being filled with screen time,” she said. 

The convenience of dating apps vs. flirting in a bar is well known by now, but daters’ preference for efficiency has escalated in recent years. The way singles engage with dating apps has changed significantly, with some people using apps more as time-killers than as legitimate matchmaking devices. 

Some modern daters are not dedicating time and energy to crafting their profiles, they’re not hemming and hawing over potential matches, and they’re certainly not agonizing over hastily-typed opening lines (at least, not as much as they used to). 

They don’t want to spend much time on the apps, and they definitely don’t want to spend much money on them, either. 

What they do want is a simple, low-key design that provides those coveted dopamine spikes — or, if they’re really lucky, that provides authentic matches instead of bells and whistles. 

Optimizing with Simplicity in Mind 

With this in mind, dating apps have no choice but to question what it really means to be successful. Is success measured by the total time people spend on the app per day, or by the total number of matches they facilitate? 

Gone are the days where dating apps marketed themselves as luxurious investment opportunities with high returns; now, the name of the game is convenience: How quickly, how effortlessly, and how painlessly an app can pave the way to IRL romance. 

If daters are treating dating apps like the mind-numbing, time-killing games they play during commercial breaks, then it may be time for the apps to market themselves as such — and to optimize accordingly. 

This means making the overall dating app experience more accessible for the average person. Keywords are ‘smooth’ and ‘simple’: How can an app optimize its design so users can smoothly and simply swipe away at ease, whether that’s when they’re watching TV or in the middle of a Zoom meeting?

This doesn’t necessarily mean that dating apps must enhance their already gamified format, though this wouldn’t be an outrageous concept. 

When Does Gamification Go Too Far?

Swiping is, after all, one of the oldest gamified features in the book, as it triggers the dopamine rush that makes games — and gambling — so addictive. One quick swipe, and you may be one step closer to true love: an addictive premise if there ever was one. 

All sorts of apps, dating and otherwise, have adopted a gamified structure in an effort to recapture flagging attention spans. As if we needed more evidence that gamification is an effective tool for engagement, Research and Markets projects that gamification will continue to grow into a billion-dollar market in 2029 and beyond. 

The University of Technology, Sydney, explained how the way a dating app presents matches, particularly via swiping, has major influence over how the user engages with the app. “Certain app features make it more likely we will open our phones and start swiping,” according to the university. 

“​​Imagine if instead of swiping through profiles one by one, you were shown a long list of them at once,” the university posited. “It would still feel good to match with people, but that excitement and anticipation of swiping through one by one would be missing.” 

The key to maintaining convenience and engagement with the app is to simultaneously maintain unpredictability, excitement, and “intermittent reinforcement,” or rewards dispensed at irregular times. Think Hinge’s Rose feature that allows a user to surprise a potential match by indicating their interest with a rose icon. 

And the workplace is a surprisingly ideal setting for unexpected dating app engagement. “Daily work life has always included breaks for socialization and the potential to meet a new partner,” Dr. Romanoff said. 

Singles are already poised for social connection; they just want their app experience to be like their work experience: “More efficient, digital and streamlined,” as Dr. Romanoff put it.