When dating apps like Tinder and Bumble were gaining popularity in the mid-2010s, Katy Coduto was not that impressed.

“I always had a hard time taking them seriously,” says Coduto, an assistant professor of media science who was working as a researcher for an advertising agency at the time. “There was an element of novelty, and it still felt kind of like a game.”

Coduto had played around with the apps but says she “never did anything serious with them.” So when a friend downloaded the apps and started swiping nonstop in an effort to find a long-term partner, the researcher in Coduto was mesmerized. “There were times when I would watch him swipe or watch him try and figure out who he would be interested in,” she recalls. “I remember being so intrigued by how deep that thought process was. And I felt like I was watching someone learn this new technology, or apply things they knew about dating to a new technology. That’s really where things started to click.”

Coduto wanted to study not only online dating, but how people are integrating technology into their lives more broadly as a way to connect with others—sometimes compulsively. She’s researched why people stream music rather than buy CDs, send sexually explicit texts and photos, and choose to look for in-person romantic relationships using dating apps. She’s even studied people’s use of social media during ongoing national news events—such as a splashy crime investigation or the January 6 insurrection—and dove into the world of Reddit support groups for families of QAnon conspiracy theorists.

“All of this technology is just fascinating and changes how people behave,” Coduto says. “A lot of my work is looking into how people use it, and specifically if they’re compulsive users. Whether it’s online dating, or Twitter, TikTok—I do think [these apps] have an element where they want you to stay on them. Most of my work in social media looks at what drives people to that ongoing, compulsive use.”

Social Media Sleuths

When protesters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, many Americans turned to social media rather than traditional news sources for information. Coduto—then on the faculty at South Dakota State University—wanted to understand why. Within 48 hours, she and her research partner sent surveys to hundreds of college students to measure their engagement with social media during the riot. They discovered that the majority of students had turned to social media channels because they didn’t trust traditional media for accurate and up-to-date information.

“There’s definitely been a shift in what people perceive as ‘good information’ or a valid source, which is scary,” she says, because many skip over legacy media sources in favor of voices they deem to be closer to the event as it happens.

Coduto and her colleague found that those who were checking social media compulsively during and just after January 6 were not doing so passively. They also posted their own thoughts and opinions about what was unfolding. Similarly, in a research paper that is under review, Coduto studied social media users who were compulsively following several crime investigations in 2023, including the murder of four University of Idaho students. Coduto spoke with social media users who did more than read about the cases; they also inserted themselves into the investigations by finding and commenting on the personal pages of both victims and alleged perpetrators. A number of these users told Coduto their obsession with following crime stories online was interfering with their jobs or schoolwork, affecting their mood, or leading them to feel like they needed to disconnect from social media. Coduto believes the true crime study may have implications for public policy—particularly in response to the type of social media users in her study. “Do we automatically make a victim’s social media private?” she offers. “Because once you start getting commenters flooding, whether they’re offering support or crazy theories, it becomes a lot harder for law enforcement to utilize that digital trail that’s been left.”

Digital Romance

Coduto happily admits that her favorite subject to research is all manner of online romance, from dating apps to sexting—the sending of explicit content over a text messaging app. The opportunity to study online dating compelled her to get her PhD after all.

She’s looked at online dating from several angles, including what happens when psychologically vulnerable people overuse the apps (it can increase anxiety, depression and loneliness) and frequency of pornography use among online daters (users seeking casual relationships view more of it).

In her most recent study, Coduto set out to define success in online dating. She asked 37 people a series of questions about their dating app use, then looked on while they swiped left and right, paying attention to what they appeared to be looking for in a partner. Generally speaking, online daters prefer to see lots of photos and longer descriptions in the profiles of potential matches, eventually use other messaging apps to communicate, and like to feel in control of the chats until trust is established. This can lead to some light hypocrisy at times: One woman Coduto observed kept declining matches with men whose bios were too short in her eyes—despite not having an extensive bio herself.

One of the things with online dating—and I think it’s why I’ve always been so interested in it—is that it is ultimately a very personal, vulnerable activity that you’re putting a lot of faith in technology to assist you with.

Kathryn Coduto

In speaking with online daters, Coduto began to hear from people—mostly women—saying that instead of getting date requests, they were being sent unsolicited explicit photos and messages. So Coduto set out to understand sexting, and what resulted was her first book, Technology, Privacy, and Sexting: Mediated Sex (Lexington, 2023). Before that, most of the academic work on sexting centered on the legal framework around the activity and tended to qualify sexting as a negative behavior. While Coduto has certainly observed negative examples of sexting—a lack of consent between parties, notably—she spoke with many people who’ve found it beneficial. “There’s a lot of reason to think that sexting can actually be really good, especially for people who are in committed relationships,” she says. “For some people, it’s a way to express themselves or express desires that might feel initially uncomfortable in person. It’s great for people in long-distance relationships, whether that’s long-term or short-term.”

While Coduto says she’s observed an uptick in in-person modes of connection, like speed-dating and singles mixers, digital technologies promising to help people form connections in real life still saturate our culture. She’s found that people use social media, including dating apps, compulsively in part because they can’t stop thinking about them and what they might be missing out on or what they might see next.

“These platforms promise something new with every swipe or scroll,” she says. “In a way, I understand it, because that’s how I feel about my own research—what’s the next thing that will jumpout and surprise me?”