How dating apps fail sexual minorities: Hyperpersonal failure as a framework for understanding challenges in developing long-term relationships

Abstract

Online dating and dating apps are meant to help sexual minorities find romantic partners, but they have also presented challenges and obstacles. Based on 27 in-depth interviews with lesbian, gay, and bisexual dating app users living in Taiwan, this exploratory study proposes the concept of hyperpersonal failure as a holistic framework for understanding these challenges. This framework specifies four types of failure, each corresponding to one element in the original hyperpersonal communication model: the failure to present oneself (online daters as the sender), the failure to meet conversational expectations (the channel), the failure to develop positive impressions of the targets (online daters as the receiver), and the failure to obtain responses (the feedback). The study also discusses how the affordances of online environments contribute to hyperpersonal failure. Overall, the framework has the potential to shed light on online dating in general, extending beyond the experiences of sexual minorities.