Page 322 - ILIAS ATHANASIADIS AKA RO1

Grindr, intentionally or not, also leverages a psychological concept called

variable ratio reinforcement, in which rewards for clicking come at
unpredictable intervals.

You may find a hookup immediately, or you may be on your phone for hours

before you find one.me clues about how Grindr is affecting gay men. And it
doesn’t look good.

Variable ratio reinforcement is one of the most effective ways to reinforce
behavior, and it makes stopping that behavior extremely difficult. Slot machines

are a classic example.

Because gamblers never know when the next payout will come, they can’t stop
pulling the handle.

They hold out hope that the next pull will give them the pleasurable sound of
coins clanking against a metal bin, and they end up pulling for hours.

Now imagine a slot machine that rewards you with an orgasm at unpredictable

intervals.

This is potentially a powerful recipe for addiction and may explain why one user

I spoke with stays on Grindr for up to 10 hours at a time, hoping to find the
perfect partner for casual sex.

The phrase “addiction” continues to be controversial when it comes to sex and

technology, But as John Pachankis, an LGBTQ mental health expert at the Yale
School of Public Health, described the impact of Grindr to me: “I don’t know if

it’s an ‘addiction,’ but I know it causes a lot of distress.”

For now, it’s hard to know just how many Grindr users feel their use of the app
is problematic.

Early research on app use and health has focused only on sexually transmitted

infections, for instance, rates of HIV among Grindr users, using Grindr to get
people tested for STIs, etc.