The Incredible Shrinking Dating App

In her 2012 book, Addiction by Design, anthropologist Natasha Dow Schüll lays out the different technological mechanisms casinos employ to keep people gambling. From the architecture of buildings and placement of ATMs to the design of casino carpets--all of it exemplifies strategic calculation. As a blurb for a gambling trade show once put it, the various elements making up the modern gambling experience are "symphonies of individual technologies" that come together to "create a single experience," calibrated in a way to keep people playing, to maximize "time on device." "There's something very similar about the mechanisms that are built into dating apps, especially with swiping," she says. "Swiping left and right--it's almost like a horizontal slot machine. You really don't know what you're going to get."