Finding love in the black box

Most popular dating apps incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) to match users to one another. However, these platforms are not fully transparent about how their recommender systems work. In turn, users have varying degrees of awareness of matching algorithms. Unfortunately, little is known about how insight into algorithmic functioning affects the online dating experience. This research examined the relationship between algorithm awareness, self-perceived attractiveness, and satisfaction with the quality of matches. Firstly, it was theorized that a higher awareness of the recommender system will lead to more success on dating apps in terms of matching, making users feel more positive about their own attractiveness. Secondly, awareness was expected to increase the trust that users have in the abilities of matching algorithms, which consequently would enhance satisfaction with the matches that they come across on dating apps. A survey was conducted among 500 online daters in collaboration with the Dutch dating app Breeze. The data were analyzed with the use of structural equation modeling. It was found that while there was no apparent relationship between algorithm awareness and success, being more successful on dating apps was associated with higher self-perceived attractiveness. This effect appeared to be stronger for male than for female users. Importantly, higher algorithm awareness was correlated with more trust in the recommender system, which in turn positively related to the ease by which users could find matches that they are interested in. The presence of this fully mediated effect between awareness and satisfaction with matches suggested that knowledge of matching algorithms can affect both the evaluation of the recommender system as well as the results achieved on dating apps. Despite limitations, this research contributed to the relatively limited literature on human-AI interaction in online dating. Overall, the results indicated that increasing the awareness that users have of algorithm functioning could improve the experience of using dating apps.