Zoe Thomas: This is your Tech News Briefing for Tuesday, February 14th. I'm Zoe Thomas for the Wall Street Journal. It's Valentine's Day, so we're talking about the thing on everybody's mind, algorithms. I'm only slightly kidding, that's because more and more people are meeting their romantic partners via a dating app, which raises questions about how those programs match people up and whether advances in technologies could make dating easier. On today's show, we'll be joined by Liesel Sharabi, director of the Relationships and Technology Lab at Arizona State University. That's after these headlines.

One in 10 partnered adults, that's people who are married, living with a partner, or in a committed romantic relationship, say they met their current significant other on a dating site or app. Those results are from a Pew Research Center report published earlier this month. That same report found a majority of US adults surveyed are skeptical about whether the programs that underlie those apps can actually find love matches. To understand a little more about this discrepancy and the role technology can play in finding us love, I'm joined by Liesel Sharabi, she's an associate professor at Arizona State University and the director of the Relationships and Technology Lab at ASU. Hi, Professor Sharabi. Thanks for joining me.

Liesel Sharabi: Thanks for having me on.

Zoe Thomas: So you don't work with any of the dating apps, but from a high level can you kind of explain how they work? I mean, so many of us use them these days, but what's going on behind the scenes?

Liesel Sharabi: So a lot of these platforms are using algorithms to match people. And algorithms are used to recommend people to you on a dating app, a lot like how Amazon would recommend a product, or how Netflix might recommend a movie that you would want to watch. But unlike products, people have to reciprocate your interests. So it's not enough that you like someone, you also have to think about is this person also going to be interested in you in return. And so in that sense, these algorithms have to be more complex and they have to take that reciprocity into account when they're forming matches between people.

Zoe Thomas: What's the difference between say, apps where you maybe swipe on somebody you're interested in versus apps where you answer a load of questions and then you're maybe presented with potential matches?

Liesel Sharabi: Well, on some dating apps, they're having people self-report their preferences by asking them questions about what they're looking for, about themselves in general, and then they're doing their best to deliver somebody who's going to meet those criteria. Now, the issue that comes into play when you ask people what they're looking for is that sometimes what we think we're going to find attractive and what we actually find attractive can be two very different things. So you might think you wouldn't date somebody who is under 6′1, but the reality is that if they were charming and you really connected that you wouldn't pay attention to something like that. Now, on a lot of dating apps, especially recently, they're starting to skip over that process and they're just having people start swiping with the idea being that they're going to figure out what your taste is and what your preferences are by just looking on the types of profiles that you engage with. And so they are going to know what your type is without actually having to take the time to ask you. So a lot of dating apps today are using something called a collaborative filtering algorithm where they're making recommendations based on the behaviors of people who have similar taste to you. So as a basic example, say you're swiping on an app and you swipe right to indicate that you like a guy named Mike. The app might consider, okay, who else has swiped right on Mike? We see that those people also like Josh, so now we might serve up Josh as your next recommendation. So they don't have to ask you what you're looking for. They can just kind of figure it out based on how you're engaging with profiles.

Zoe Thomas: Technology has really changed the way we interact with humans at all levels. I mean, the telephone made it easier to connect, email connected us to people who are farther away. Has using dating apps changed the kinds of relationships we've had?

Liesel Sharabi: I mean, I think that they're giving us a lot more options than we used to have because if you think of what we did before we had dating apps, you were kind of at the mercy of the people you might come across just going about your day-to-day routine, like who you meet at the gym, who you meet at work or at school. And so I think that one of the really great things that dating apps do for people is that they just open up the dating pool beyond your immediate network and even beyond your immediate community to introduce you to a lot more people than you would've had access to previously.

Zoe Thomas: What about incentives for the dating apps themselves?

Liesel Sharabi: Yeah, I mean, there's different ways that you can look at this because on the one hand, it makes the app look really good if they're helping people form successful relationships, you would think that that would be a desirable outcome. But at the same time, when people are successful in finding long-term relationship, if that's what they're looking for, then those are people who will ultimately leave the app.

Zoe Thomas: I want to talk a little bit more about how these apps are developed in the first place. What goes into them, if I'm a new app developer, I want to start a dating app. Am I starting with math? Am I starting with a focus group of gossipy grandmas from my neighborhood? How do you start these?

Liesel Sharabi: I mean, one thing that you really need are users. And so, one of the number one things that I think people look for when they're deciding which dating app to sign up for is just how many people are there. Is it going to expand their opportunities to meet someone? And so with users, the best way to get users is to have users that's going to attract people. And so I think that that's definitely something to think about is just where are the people going to come from and how can you make sure that people are going to find the type of crowd that they actually want. I think of these dating apps, kind of like singles bars where everyone has a different crowd, it has a different culture. And so people also look for individuals that are what they want, that are what they're looking for in a relationship, and they look for their crowd on these apps. And so also thinking about your demographics and who you're trying to appeal to can help.

Zoe Thomas: Technology doesn't stop with apps, you've done some research on immersive and virtual reality dating. Can you take us through how that might change dating in the future?

Liesel Sharabi: Yeah. At this point, this is all very speculative because I think that right now a lot of people are still getting to used to the idea of video dating. So the idea of virtual reality dating sounds really far-fetched, but when I think about what this space is going to look like in 5 or 10 years, the idea of just engaging with people over text and swiping on profiles, I think that that leaves a lot of room for improvement. And when I think of virtual reality dating, I think of really taking dating back to its roots and allowing people to meet more organically. So right now, you swipe on profiles. In virtual reality, you might have the chance to walk up to somebody at a virtual bar and just sit down and start talking while still having all of the advantages of a dating app where you can read more about somebody, where you can see a profile. But I think that it allows people to get to know each other as individuals, rather than getting to know each other through a profile.

Zoe Thomas: I want to talk about some news that we can maybe use, if you're using a dating app, are there kind of best ways to use it to make sure that you are finding the right matches?

Liesel Sharabi: So one thing that people can do is get out there and just meet people. I think that sometimes you spend a lot of time swiping and talking without taking that next step of actually meeting somebody in person. And so that can be very time-consuming, it can be very draining. And also spending that time interacting with somebody on a dating app doesn't necessarily give you a sense of what it's going to be like to interact with them in person. So using the apps more as a way of being introduced to people and then doing the real dating face-to-face where you can get a better sense of what it's like to engage with them.

Zoe Thomas: Professor Sharabi, thank you so much for joining us for this conversation.

Liesel Sharabi: Thank you.

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