Commodifying intimate relationships through geosocial networking mobile apps: Data-driven dating, sexual sociality, and online body objectification

Abstract

I draw on a substantial body of theoretical and empirical research on commodifying intimate relationships through geosocial networking mobile apps, and to explore this, I inspected, used, and replicated survey data from Pew Research Center, performing analyses and making estimates regarding % of U.S. adults in each group who have used mobile dating apps, % in each age group who have ever used an online dating site and/or mobile dating app, and % of teens with relationship experience who spend time with a significant other in certain ways. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data and test the proposed conceptual model.