Ah, Tinder. Some love it. Some hate it. Some have no idea what to think about it.

Tinder was at the forefront of apps of its kind, coming into the market in September of 2012. In the last five years, largely due to this market disruption, a lot has changed for modern daters. “Swipe left, swipe right” holds a permanent spot in our lexicon; you no longer need a computer to do online dating, just a smartphone; and you find most of the people you want to date while you’re in the comfort of your own home, likely in bed (or the bathroom). Do these things make Tinder a positive or negative thing for society? That’s up to you to decide.

As a dating coach, I see many merits of Tinder and similar dating apps. For starters, much like the “traditional” sites like Match.com and eHarmony, using any kind of online dating site gives you access to people whose paths you wouldn’t have necessarily crossed. Through the dating sites/apps, I have personally found myself out with men I wouldn’t have met in my usual social circles. There was the TV actor (who I didn’t recognize… oops), the corporate lawyer by day and stand-up comedian by night, the many people from other cultures/ethnicities/religions, and just the people who happen to live in a different neighborhood and have a different schedule than I do.

All of this speaks volumes about Tinder. One downside is, of course, the perceived anonymity of any site where you’re not looking face-to-face at someone else. We all know about internet trolls, the people who write hateful comments under the guise (and pseudonym) of someone untraceable. Sadly, this happens on Tinder as well. In fact, I have a whole Instagram account dedicated to the less-than-stellar messages some women receive on such sites.

How do you combat this behavior? In my opinion, there should be a function where you can not only flag someone, but where you can also let other people know that he (or she) has said something lewd. Perhaps give that person a negative rating, like on Yelp or Uber. Just an idea.

This is not the idea, however, that Tinder itself had. Instead, they rolled out their new “Reactions” function this month, and, let me tell you, in my opinion, it’s a flop.

What are these so-called reactions anyway? They’re a set of animations that women can send to men (not the other way around, I confirmed) to try to combat any online harassment they are receiving. Choices range from an animated bouncing tennis ball saying “Ball’s in your court” to a “strike” sign similar to the one on Family Feud when someone says an answer that’s not on the big board. I don’t know about you, but I don’t foresee an animated martini being thrown in someone’s face and some (maybe sarcastic?) hand clapping ever putting an end to online harassment. If anything, it makes a mockery of it, which has exactly the opposite effect that Tinder is going for.

I encourage all of my clients to communicate. In words. And sentences. As in, if someone says something offensive to you, then tell him (or her) that it’s not okay, in no uncertain terms. Someone is more likely to apologize after a heartfelt “That was inappropriate, and I deserve better than that” than a fake martini emoji, which, if anything, might induce some eye rolling.

So, to Tinder: Was this your best effort, or was it simply a marketing ploy? The world may never know.

Want to see what I really think? I talked about it with our friends at News Channel 8.

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I can’t lie—I’m a big fan of the emoji.  If I’m talking about my propensity to make a pun in any and all situations, I’ll probably punctuate it with the “nerd face” emoji.  Or, if I’m asking my dog walker how Scruffy, well, performed, I might simply use a “pile of poo” followed by a question mark.  I’ve even been known to write full sentences sometimes: “Woman” (to represent me) + “Person lifting weights” = “Flexed biceps.”  And don’t even get me started on Bitmojis…

The caveat here is that I only use emojis to this extent with people I know (and who I know already like me and hopefully find me to be an intelligent person).  If I were texting with someone for the first time, I wouldn’t go overboard, and a study that came out last month shows that keeping your emoji game close to the vest at the beginning—specifically in your online dating profile—might just be the right way to go.

The Edmonton Journal published an article called “People Who Use Many Emojis in Online Dating Profiles are Perceived as Less Intelligent.”  From the article, “The experiment included seven types of profiles for participants to evaluate. One of them, the control, contained no emojis.  Another consisted almost entirely of emojis.  In the rest, emojis were used sparingly, randomly, redundantly and to replace words.  Each of 692 heterosexual participants received one randomly assigned profile.  Participants were asked to rate the profile owners’ traits, including intelligence, and indicate their level of interest in dating the person.”

The study concluded that the profile that had the most emojis with the shortest amount of text (14 emojis) was rated as significantly less intelligent than the control group or any other profile type, thereby deterring the reader from matching, writing, or wanting to date this person.

The study, unfortunately, didn’t delve into why people associated excessive emoji use with lower intelligence, but I might hypothesize that emoji use here is analogous to “text speak,” in that it’s a shortcut.  Do I personally judge people who use “ur” rather than “your” or “cu” rather than “see you” as less intelligent?  For better or worse, I do.  Both are types of shorthand.  It’s one thing if you know the person at the other end does have a handle on the language and is simply playing with it.  But, it’s another if this person is new, and the first impression is that he or she is lazy (by taking shortcuts) or doesn’t have a grasp on language.  Also, because emoji lexicon is fairly new, using many of them gives off the impression of someone being less mature.

Interestingly, in the study, the profile types that contained two simple emoticons and redundant emojis, which complemented but did not replace the text, tended to be perceived as more intelligent, compared to the control.

As a final note, this experiment was far from perfect.  There were about four times as many women as men.  In my experience as a dating coach, women get more leeway in using emojis than men.  When men use too many, or even a simple smiley face emoticon, it’s often perceived as less masculine.  Also, the average age of participants was 20 years old, far below most readers of this article and certainly the clients I work with.

Regardless, if you’re going to take anything away from both this study and this article, it’s to use your emojis sparingly, if at all, in your profile.  For example, if you’re writing your Bumble profile and considering using a string of emojis to tell your life story, please reconsider.  Wait until you get to know someone to show your “face with tears of joy” or “eggplant” (I take that back… never show your eggplant) for the world to see.

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