Up to Date

In Up to Date, Tong and Van Der Heide explore the spicy, unsettling and sometimes just exhausting universe of online romance. As dating platforms like Bumble, Tinder, and Grindr proliferate, scholars have had to stretch their understandings of how courtship works, often arriving at fascinatingly counterintuitive theories about how twenty-first century daters shape online identities, select mates, mediate conflict, and maintain or terminate romantic relationships. This book guides readers through an increasingly complex and extensive literature, highlighting strengths and weaknesses of existing approaches, while establishing new avenues for the future. Written for both students and seasoned experts alike, the book also addresses the largely invisible underpinnings of what has become a multibillion-dollar industry, including proprietary algorithms and perverse economic incentives. Up to Date is a provocative and rigorous must-read for anyone who seeks to understand or conduct research regarding the social science of online romance.

List of Figures - List of Tables - Acknowledgments< em/> - An Introduction to Up to Date- A Brief History of Online and Mobile Dating: The Role of Technology in the Contemporary Romantic Imagination - Good, Old-Fashioned Love: The Stage Model Approach to Understanding Romantic Relationships - What is an Online Dating Platform? Defining, Describing, and Understanding Popular Dating Technologies - Self-Presentation & Impression Formation in Online and Mobile Dating - "To the Left, To the Left": Mate Selection in Online and Mobile Dating - Navigating the Great Modality Shift: From Tinder to Text to Snapchat to Starbucks - Intragroup and Intergroup Interaction Patterns: Online Dating across Age, Race, and Gender - Maintaining Romantic Relationships through Mediated Technologies - Conflict and CMC in Interpersonal Relationships - The Dark Side of Online Dating and Romantic Relationships - The Unbearable Lightness of Dating: Online and Mobile Dating Fatigue - Strange Bedfellows: Data Collection, Data Use, and Personal Privacy in Online and Mobile Dating - Concluding Thoughts, New Ideas - Index.