Download, burnout, delete, repeat.
下载、倦怠、删除，然后重复。
Science says dating app users follow a predictable and dangerous pattern.
科学研究表明，约会应用用户会陷入一种可预测且危险的模式。
These are the signs you're falling for it – and how to escape.
以下是你正在陷入这种模式的迹象，以及摆脱它的方法。
Two years ago, Fernanda R deleted the dating apps and swore she was done.
两年前，费尔南达·R 删除了约会应用，并发誓自己再也不用了。
Then her friends started pairing off with partners they met online, everyone telling the same hopeful stories.
后来，她的朋友们开始和在网上认识的对象成双成对，每个人都讲着同样充满希望的故事。
So, a few weeks ago, the 29-year-old international affairs advisor – who asked to withhold her last name – decided to trying again and re-downloaded a few dating apps.
于是几周前，这位29岁的国际事务顾问决定再试一次，重新下载了几个约会应用；她要求不公开自己的姓氏。
"I thought maybe things would being different this times," Fernanda says.
“我当时想，也许这次情况会不一样，”费尔南达说。
She was wrong.
她错了。
Soon she was juggling multiple conversations, obsessively checking her phone, buckling under the constant pressure to be witty and interesting.
很快，她就同时应付着多段聊天，强迫性地查看手机，并在持续要求自己机智有趣的压力下不堪重负。
"It just feels overwhelming," says Fernanda.
“这真的让人觉得应接不暇，”费尔南达说。
"There's this invisible pressure.
“有一种看不见的压力。
It starts to takes away from your real friendships, your working."
它开始侵蚀你现实中的友谊和工作。”
The algorithm flooded her with people, but nothing clicked.
算法向她推来了大量人选，但没有一个让她产生感觉。
Fernanda couldn't stop wondering what that said about her.
费尔南达忍不住一直想，这到底说明她自己有什么问题。
She felt lonelier than she had in two years of beings single.
她觉得自己比过去两年单身时更加孤独。
Fernanda's story is one I've heard hundreds of times, and there's a name for it: dating app burnout.
费尔南达的故事我已经听过几百次了，而这种现象有一个名字：约会应用倦怠。
Research suggests apps may produce a recognisable pattern in their users, one that looks less like dating and more like effects of an unmanageably stressful job – exhaustion, cynicism and a creeping sense that nothing you didn't is working, and maybe the problem is you.
研究表明，这些应用可能会在用户身上制造出一种可识别的模式：它看起来不像约会，更像一份压力大到难以承受的工作所带来的影响，包括疲惫、犬儒，以及一种逐渐蔓延的感觉：你做什么都没有用，也许问题出在你自己身上。
Left alone, it gets worse.
如果放任不管，情况会变得更糟。
Studies link dating apps to higher rates of depression, anxiety and loneliness, with heavier costs on people who were already struggling beforehand.
研究发现，约会应用与更高的抑郁、焦虑和孤独发生率有关，而那些此前就已经处于挣扎状态的人付出的代价更沉重。
"It seems as if the goals of the apps are fundamentally incongruent with the goals of users," says Liesel Sharabi, director of the Relationships and Technology Lab at Arizona State University in the US.
“这些应用的目标似乎从根本上就与用户的目标不一致，”美国亚利桑那州立大学关系与技术实验室主任莉塞尔·沙拉比说。
If people were getting great recommendations and going on incredible dates, they’d be getting off the apps for better.
如果人们真的能获得很棒的推荐，并去赴令人惊喜的约会，他们就会彻底离开这些应用。
"But that's not what's happening.
“但现实并不是这样。
People are just constantly cycling on and off."
人们只是不断地上线又退出，反复循环。”
If summer has you back online looking for love, you might be in that loop right now.
如果这个夏天让你重新回到网上寻找爱情，你现在可能正处在那个循环之中。
The good news is once you recognise it, there are concrete steps you could take to protect yourself.
好消息是，一旦你认出了这种循环，就可以采取一些具体措施来保护自己。
A 2024 study followed hundreds of dating apps users over the course of three months.
一项2024年的研究在三个月里跟踪了数百名约会应用用户。
"We ended up finding over time, people using dating apps were experiencing burnout across the board," Sharabi says.
“我们最终发现，随着时间推移，使用约会应用的人普遍都在经历倦怠，”Sharabi说。
Which makes sense.
这也说得通。
If you're stuck on the app, you haven't found what you're looking for (unless you just wants hookups).
如果你还困在应用里，就说明你还没有找到自己想要的东西（除非你只是想要随意的性关系）。
But the experience was far more severe than frustration.
但这种体验远比挫败感严重。
The word "burnout" gets thrown around so much it's started to lose its meaning, but it has a more formal, psychological definition.
“倦怠”这个词被人随意使用得太多，以至于已经开始失去原本的意义，但它有一个更正式的心理学定义。
The classic inventory measures burnout in three categories: emotional exhaustion, cynicism (or depersonalisation) and inefficiency.
经典量表从三个类别衡量倦怠：情绪衰竭、犬儒主义（或去人格化）和低效能感。
Academics first described this phenomenon in high-pressure work environments, but research has extended it to other parts of life.
学者们最初是在高压工作环境中描述这种现象的，但研究已经把它扩展到生活的其他领域。
According to Sharabi, you can see it in online daters.
Sharabi表示，你可以在网上约会者身上看到这种现象。
Emotional exhaustion is simple: if swiping leaves you feelings unmotivated, defeated and tired, that could be a sign of burnout.
情绪衰竭很简单：如果滑动浏览让你感到缺乏动力、挫败和疲惫，那可能就是倦怠的迹象。
You're experiencing cynicism and depersonalisation when the profiles blend together, Sharabi says, and interactions stop feeling human.
Sharabi说，当那些个人资料混成一片、互动不再让人觉得像人与人之间的交流时，你就在经历犬儒主义和去人格化。
Inefficiency, in this context, is a creeping conviction that nothing you do on the app is going to work, either because you're bad at it or there's something wrong with you.
在这种语境下，低效能感是一种逐渐滋生的确信：你在应用上做什么都不会有用，要么是因为你不擅长，要么是因为你自己有问题。
"I started on the app feeling like I want to be respectful because at the end of the day, we're all just human beings," says Madeleine D, who works in marketing for a tech company and also requested to keep her full name off the record.
“我刚开始使用这个应用时觉得自己想要保持尊重，因为归根结底，我们都只是普通人，”Madeleine D说。她在一家科技公司做市场营销，也要求不要公开她的全名。
"But the more time I spent, the more blind I became about it, like I didn't really care about these people.
“但我花在上面的时间越多，就越对此变得麻木，好像我其实并不在乎这些人。
I hated that about myself, because the one thing I promised myself was that I would at least show decency and respect."
我讨厌自己这一点，因为我曾向自己承诺的一件事是，至少要表现出体面和尊重。”
It's easy to write this off as the predictable grumbling of singles in their later 20s.
人们很容易把这视为二十七八岁单身人士意料之中的抱怨而不予理会。
Dating is harder, and bars aren't so great either.
约会本来就难，酒吧也并没有好到哪里去。
But research suggests something more serious.
但研究表明，问题可能更严重。
Sharabi led a recent meta-analysis which aggregated 17 years' worth of studies covering about 26,000 people.
Sharabi主持了近期一项荟萃分析，汇总了17年来涉及约2.6万人的研究。
The study found dating app users reported significantly worse psychological health than non-users, including depression, anxiety, emotional dysregulation, loneliness and psychological distress.
该研究发现，约会应用用户报告的心理健康状况明显比非用户更差，包括抑郁、焦虑、情绪失调、孤独和心理痛苦。
Those problems fell harder on people who joining dating apps in worse shape to begin with.
那些本来状态就更差的人加入约会应用后，受到这些问题的冲击更大。
In theory, Sharabi says the apps are a lifeline for people who find dating hardest: those whose mental health issues make meeting partners in person more difficult.
Sharabi说，理论上，这些应用对最觉得约会困难的人来说是一条救命索：也就是那些因心理健康问题而更难在线下结识伴侣的人。
But Sharabi has found those users were the most likely to burning out, and faster.
但Sharabi发现，这些用户最有可能倦怠，而且倦怠得更快。
"Those people tended to be especially susceptible," Sharabi says.
“这些人往往特别容易受到影响，”Sharabi说。
"It basically exacerbated some of the pre-existing difficulties they had."
“它基本上加剧了他们原本就存在的一些困难。”
The dating app industry doesn't want its users burning out.
约会软件行业并不希望自己的用户感到倦怠。
"As society and daters’ needs continue to evolve, we remain committed to helping people make meaningful connections and turn those connections into great dates," a Hinge spokesperson tells the BBC.
Hinge的一位发言人告诉BBC：“随着社会和约会者的需求不断变化，我们仍致力于帮助人们建立有意义的联系，并把这些联系转化为美好的约会。”
Hinge says the app is designed to staying in the background of your life, and the company focused on using feedback from daters to improve the experience.
Hinge表示，这款应用的设计理念是退居用户生活的背景之中，而公司则专注于利用约会者的反馈来改善体验。
"Dating has always kind of sucked, and I think it's really easy to blame the technology," Sharabi says.
Sharabi说：“约会一直都有点糟糕，而我觉得把问题归咎于技术真的很容易。”
At the same time, she thinks the apps amplify the misery in specific ways.
与此同时，她认为这些应用确实以特定方式放大了这种痛苦。
One is gamification.
其中之一就是游戏化。
Dating apps are built around fast, frictionless gestures and inconsistent rewards.
约会软件围绕快速、顺滑无阻的手势操作和不稳定的奖励机制而设计。
Many complain the structure is more like a slot machine than courtship, and users can get stuck pulling the lever long after the fun wears off.
许多人抱怨说，这种结构与其说像恋爱追求，不如说更像老虎机；即使乐趣早已消退，用户仍可能困在不断拉动拉杆的循环里。
"The swiping gives you a high," says Karen Cornejo, an office administrator in Los Angeles.
洛杉矶的办公室行政人员Karen Cornejo说：“滑动会让你产生一种兴奋感。”
"And then everything else just doesn't."
“然后其他一切都没有这种感觉了。”
By the time a match actually wants to meet, the rush is gone.
等到某个匹配对象真的想见面时，那股兴奋劲已经没了。
"I'm not even interested at that point anymore," Cornejo says, and the process leaves her feeling flat.
Cornejo说：“到了那个时候，我甚至已经不感兴趣了。”而这个过程让她感到索然无味。
Dallas Koelling, a writer and comedian in Brooklyn who has gone on and off a couple of apps for years, puts it more bluntly: "Getting the notification that I've gotten a like on Hinge feels like being threatened with a gun."
Dallas Koelling是布鲁克林的一名作家兼喜剧演员，多年来断断续续使用过几个约会软件；她说得更直白：“收到Hinge上有人给我点赞的通知，感觉就像被人拿枪威胁一样。”
Then there's the hidden labour.
此外，还有那些隐形劳动。
"If you lived in, like, Shakespeare's England, you might never even meet the amount of people who you see in one day swiping on Hinge," Koelling says.
Koelling说：“如果你生活在，比如说，莎士比亚时代的英格兰，你一辈子可能都见不到你在Hinge上滑一天所看到的那么多人。”
Dating apps dramatically expand the pool of potential partners.
约会软件极大地扩大了潜在伴侣的范围。
That's what makes them great, in fact, but the abundance can turn dating into work.
事实上，这正是它们的优点所在，但这种选择过剩也会把约会变成一项工作。
"It feels like a second full-time job that I having to do on my lunch break or after work," Madeleine says.
Madeleine说：“这感觉像是我的第二份全职工作，必须在午休或下班后去做。”
"I don't want to be glued to my phone.
“我不想整天黏在手机上。
And for social media, I've gotten a lot better at putting it downs.
而对社交媒体，我已经更能放下手机了。
But with dating, there's this feeling that the next person you swipe on could be the person you end up marrying.
但在约会这件事上，总会有一种感觉：你下一个滑到的人，可能就是最终和你结婚的人。
There's this endless hope that it feels like dating apps prey on."
这种无穷无尽的希望，让人感觉约会软件正是在利用它。”
The bottomless sea of faces also contributes to the feelings of burnout, Sharabi says, especially because a profile can only tell you so much.
Sharabi说，那片仿佛无底的面孔海洋也会加剧倦怠感，尤其是因为个人资料能告诉你的信息终究有限。
"You get trapped in an endless cycle of profile to dead-end conversation to dead-end date, and then you're right back where you started," she says.
她说：“你会被困在一个无休止的循环里：从个人资料，到没有结果的对话，再到没有结果的约会，然后又回到起点。”
On top of all that, the structural tension is hard to ignore.
除此之外，这种结构性矛盾也很难被忽视。
Dating apps really do want users to find matches.
约会应用确实希望用户找到匹配对象。
We'd all stop using them if that never happened.
如果这种事从未发生，我们都会停止使用它们。
But they're also a business, one that makes almost all its money on subscriptions and paid features, which means they lose money if people quit.
但它们也是一门生意，几乎所有收入都来自订阅和付费功能，这意味着如果用户退出，它们就会损失收入。
For years, dating app users have been telling me they feel manipulated, and that apps withhold the best matches and exploit their emotions to keep them tapping and swiping.
多年来，约会应用用户一直告诉我，他们觉得自己被操控了，认为应用会保留最优质的匹配对象，并利用他们的情绪来让他们不停点击和滑动。
(Dating app companies categorically deny this.
（约会应用公司断然否认这一点。
But the algorithms that run them are a mystery.)
但驱动这些应用运行的算法仍是个谜。）
In 2024, a class-action lawsuit accused Match Group – the giant conglomerate that owns Tinder, Hinge and many other popular dating apps – of designing its apps to be addictive and profiting from compulsive use rather than from helping people find partners.
2024年，一起集体诉讼指控 Match Group 这家拥有 Tinder、Hinge 以及许多其他热门约会应用的大型集团，将其应用设计得令人上瘾，并从强迫性使用中获利，而不是通过帮助人们找到伴侣来获利。
Match Group dismissed the claims as "ridiculous".
Match Group 驳斥这些说法，称其“荒谬”。
The case was later sent to arbitration.
该案后来被提交仲裁。
(Match Group did not respond to a request for comment).
（Match Group 未回应置评请求）。
"The vast majority of our work focuses on improving the free experience on Hinge, with less than 15% of our community using paid features," a Hinge spokesperson says.
Hinge 的一位发言人表示：“我们绝大部分工作都集中在改善 Hinge 的免费体验上，使用付费功能的社区成员不到15%。”
"Ultimately, our success depends on people having positive experiences on the app, meeting someone meaningful, and ultimately recommending Hinge to others.
“归根结底，我们的成功取决于人们在这款应用上获得积极体验、遇见有意义的人，并最终向他人推荐 Hinge。
The apps are designed to keep users swiping, and when unchecked, swiping is what wears people down.
这些应用被设计成让用户不断滑动，而如果不加节制，正是这种滑动会让人筋疲力尽。
But Sharabi says there are some simple steps you can follow to avoid the symptoms of burnout and keep your mental health in check.
但 Sharabi 表示，你可以遵循一些简单步骤来避免倦怠症状，并让自己的心理健康保持在可控状态。
1.
数字 1。
First, don't make the apps your only outlet.
首先，不要把这些应用当作你唯一的出口。
"I never discourage people from using them," Sharabi says.
Sharabi 说：“我从不劝阻人们使用它们。”
"But they shouldn't be the only way you're trying to meet people, and that takes some of the pressure off."
“但它们不应该是你试图结识他人的唯一方式，这样能减轻一些压力。”
Join a run club, ask a friend to set you up and put yourself in rooms where you might meet someone the old-fashioned way.
加入跑步俱乐部，请朋友帮你介绍对象，并让自己出现在可能以传统方式遇见某个人的场合。
That way a discouraging conversation on an app isn't the only thing your week is riding on.
这样一来，应用上一场令人沮丧的对话就不会成为你这一周唯一寄托的事情。
Mindless swiping can swallow hours and leave you with nothing to show for it.
漫无目的地滑动可能吞掉数小时，最后却让你毫无收获。
Sharabi recommends treating the apps the way some people now treat social media.
Sharabi 建议，人们可以像现在有些人对待社交媒体那样对待这些应用。
"Say I'm going to look at the app for this amount of time, this many times a week, and I'm done," she says.
她说：“告诉自己，我每周只看这个应用这么多次、每次看这么长时间，然后就结束。”
Notice your mood and stop before the exhaustion sets in, so you end each session energised rather than hollowed out.
留意自己的情绪，在疲惫感袭来之前停下来，这样每次使用结束时，你会感到更有精神，而不是被掏空。
Burnout thrives in isolation, and much of the swiping that produces it happens alone.
倦怠会在孤立中滋长，而造成这种倦怠的大量滑动行为都是独自完成的。
Researchers who study burnout have long found that social support cushions the blow; talking through the ups and downs with people who know you can keep a bad week from becoming a bad spiral.
研究倦怠的学者早就发现，社会支持能缓冲打击；和了解你的人聊聊其中的起起落落，能避免糟糕的一周演变成糟糕的恶性循环。
Dating can be discouraging, but if the apps are eroding your optimism, and you put down your phone feeling like you're never going to find someone, that's the signal to step away entirely.
约会可能令人沮丧，但如果这些应用正在侵蚀你的乐观心态，而你放下手机时觉得自己永远找不到对象，那就是该彻底离开的信号。
"All of those things could be a sign that maybe you should just take a total break," Sharabi says.
“所有这些都可能是一个信号，说明也许你应该彻底休息一下，”沙拉比说。
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• Google's AI is being manipulated.
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The search giant is fighting back
这家搜索巨头正在反击
There are signs the dating app business is aware of these concerns.
有迹象表明，约会应用行业已经意识到了这些担忧。
The industry could be in trouble.
这个行业可能正陷入困境。
Paid subscribers are dropping like flies, and there's some indication that younger people are keen to find love offline.
付费订阅用户正在大量流失，而且有迹象表明，年轻人热衷于在线下寻找爱情。
Battered by what executives call "swipe fatigue", dating apps are working to reinvent themselves.
受到高管们所谓“滑动疲劳”的冲击，约会应用正在努力重塑自身。
Bumble is abandoning the swipe altogether, joining Hinge and Tinder in a new embrace of more AI-driven matchmaking.
Bumble 正在彻底放弃滑动匹配，并与 Hinge 和 Tinder 一样，转向更由人工智能驱动的配对方式。
Tinder's CEO recently announced plans to embrace in-person events in an effort to reshape the app.
Tinder 的首席执行官最近宣布计划拥抱线下活动，以重塑这款应用。
A Hinge spokesperson says creating a "less lonely world" is the company's core mission, and it's working to create supportive communal spaces online and off.
Hinge 的一位发言人表示，创造一个“更少孤独的世界”是公司的核心使命，公司正努力在线上和线下打造有支持性的公共空间。
Whether any of it works, or whether it's just a fresh way to keep people tapping, remains to be seen.
这些做法是否奏效，还是只是一种让人们继续点击的新方式，仍有待观察。
For now, people caught in the cycle are left to manage it themselves.
眼下，陷在这个循环里的人只能自己设法应对。
Madeleine is staying off the apps for now, though she doesn't expect it to last.
玛德琳目前暂时不用这些应用，尽管她并不指望这种状态能持续下去。
In a world where so many relationships begin online, opting out can feel like opting out of romance entirely.
在一个如此多恋情都始于线上的世界里，选择退出可能让人感觉像是彻底退出了爱情。
"I doubt this will be more than a break," she says.
“我怀疑这只会是一次短暂的休息，”她说。
"But dating can be fun, when you remove how seriously some people take it."
“但当你去掉有些人对约会过于认真的态度时，约会也可以很有趣。”
Then, after a beat: "I just wish we had a better way to do this."
随后，她停顿了一下说：“我只是希望我们能有一种更好的方式来做这件事。”
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