Ricerc@Sapienza

In this paper, we address algorithmic imaginary, perception and tactics of Italian dating apps users. Little attention has hitherto been devoted to the ways in which the algorithms employed by mobile dating platforms (to rate users, to manage user visibility, to arrange results) might contrast, or enhance, people’s homophily. Our goal is to explore whether and how mobile dating algorithmsmodify the perception of what we define as “relational filter bubbles”; and whether, and how, users believe dating algorithms reshape (extend or limit) the heterogeneity of their intimate interactions.