Social media gets a lot of deserved blame for worsening our ability to connect meaningfully across interests and differences in beliefs.
But I have to imagine dating apps have been nearly as bad in terms of their impact on emotional development alongside another person.
They commoditized relationships, whether intentionally or not. They squarely fit the bill of “too much of a good thing”. Relationships are hard, and dating apps removed the incentive (i.e. avoiding the effort of having to find someone new) to work through the hard shit.
I’m sure there’s been a net positive effect for some demos or cohorts. My bet though is a significant number of people are facing an increasingly harder time finding meaningful, long-lasting relationships, either because they or their partner have too high of expectations for how “easy” they should be, and they know they only need a few swipes in an app to reset and try again.