People use dating apps for more than just arranging dates. They are also sources of intimate connection, experimentation, and education. Are current dating apps safe spaces for these activities? Are there ways of using dating apps to shape who we are which do not also objectify other people, or treat them as mere means to our ends?

Dating apps remove our intimate lives from community scrutiny. The implications of this radical privacy demand further study. The mental health of users, and their experiences of alienation, must to be taken as seriously as their physical safety. Can this be done without app-companies having to express substantive views about good intimacy? 

Dating apps help us filter potential matches, sometimes giving us more choice if we pay. These filters help us reflect our preferences and desires but also contribute to patterns of intimate discrimination. Some people find it harder to match on the grounds of their race, class, gender identity, or appearance. Can app-designers and policy makers do more to remedy this discrimination, and should app-users change their habits?

Dating apps could help us learn about ourselves, not just help us find what we already desire. Perhaps our swipes are less diverse than we think, or we show a bias towards a particular physical or personality type. Dating apps could do more to empower us by putting our personal data back into our hands for beneficial ends.

Has dating app culture created social practices like ghosting and what are we to make of them? Ghosting can seem like a rational response if we have many, possibly insincere, matches but it also seems disrespectful. Can, and should, app designers do more to discourage us from these behaviours, or is this a matter for individual users?

Match scores, colourful charts, notifications, all gamify the experience of using a dating app in order to capture our attention. Is this an innocuous, even fun, consequence of good design, or does gamification distance ourselves from our values and romantic goals? Might there be forms of good gamification which help us foster intimacy and treat each other better?  

Is it the role of dating app companies to promote substantive visions of user agency and autonomy, or specific values like kindness? Ought they encourage practices of good communication? Are there commercial barriers to promoting values? What if dating apps are popular, and therefore profitable, precisely because we are free to act badly on them?  

Younger people constitute the largest demographic of dating app users, but sex and relationship education in wider society is often inadequate. Online platforms could serve as a useful site of intimate education, but should they? Are nudges which encourage users to reflect on their dating behaviour, or consider safer-sex practices, compatible with user-autonomy? Are there downsides to trying to educate specific groups?

People now are able to use artificial intelligence to write dating profiles, edit photographs, and even have conversations with people. To what extent are these actions ethically troubling? Is use of AI akin to asking a friend for help, or a substantial barrier to trust, authenticity, and intimate integrity? Might AI improve the romantic lives of people who might otherwise struggle to present themselves or stand out?

The algorithms used to present dating app users with possible matches are opaque and commercially protected. To what extent is this lack of transparency a problem and can it be mitigated? Can we imagine more open-source forms of online dating?