Tinder users: The ugly truth

Tinder creates a dynamic in which women and men are judged on their appearance, something women may be more accustomed to than men.

Many studies have found that people active on social media appear to be more critical of their bodies. Now, a new study concludes that Tinder users have similar negative views about their appearance.

Tinder users have low self-esteem and more negative views of their bodies than those who don't use the popular dating app, according to research presented at the American Psychological Association's annual convention last week.

"The women and men who used Tinder reported higher levels of self-objectification and monitoring of their appearance, as well as more dissatisfaction and shame related to their bodies, than did those who were not users," the study found.

The study was conducted by Jessica Strubel and Trent Petrie at the University of North Texas.

"We found that being actively involved with Tinder, regardless of the user's gender, was associated with body dissatisfaction, body shame, body monitoring, internalisation of societal expectations of beauty, comparing oneself physically to others, and reliance on media for information on appearance and attractiveness," Strubel said.

Although the study found that body-consciousness was felt by men and women, it was men's self-esteem that took a harder hit from using the dating app. This could be due to the fact that there are more men than women on Tinder.

"Men have been found to 'right swipe' 46 per cent of their matches compared to women, who do so only 14 per cent of the time," the study noted. This gender imbalance could lead heterosexual men to "believe they need to 'right swipe' with high frequency to increase their chances of finding someone who might like them."

By swiping right (or "yes, I'm interested") more often, men set themselves up for frequent rejection.

"Even for those men with generally high levels of esteem, the Tinder system does not appear to work in their favour and may result in a diminished sense of self after repeated use," the study concluded.

Tinder creates a dynamic in which women and men are judged on their appearance, something women may be more accustomed to than men.

"Tinder may have evened the playing field," the researchers noted, when it comes to being objectified and experiencing body shame and dissatisfaction.

Although Tinder users tended to have lower self-esteem, the researchers pointed out that correlation doesn't imply causation.

"It could be just as likely that people with lower self-esteem are drawn more to these types of apps," they noted.