Have you ever felt exhausted from swiping through dating apps? You may be experiencing burnout.

That was the case for Marilyn Espitia, a 31-year-old freelance photo editor and photographer from California who first ventured into online dating in college, when she met her former partner and now father of her son on OkCupid.

Today she is single and has been for about three years. While she is still a “hopeless romantic” who plans to continue using these platforms, mainly Hinge, Espitia says she will close an app or pause her profile when it gets too much.

“It’s starting to get overwhelming,” Espitia said.

Licensed clinical psychologist Yasmine Saad says that about 3 in 4 people she works with use dating apps, and between 80 and 90% have expressed feeling fatigue or exhaustion similar to Espitia’s at some point.

This is partly because online dating never promises success, regardless of whether you’re looking for a life partner or a casual fling.

“It’s a very difficult process for people because you put in a lot and then you get very little back,” said Saad, founder and CEO of Madison Park Psychological Services in New York. “It causes a lot of hopelessness and a lot of self-esteem issues.”

Kathryn Coduto, an assistant professor of media sciences at Boston University who has been studying online dating since 2016, says dating app burnout is probably as old as the apps themselves, noting that people had experienced fatigue with earlier, desktop-dominant platforms like eHarmony or Match.com as well.

But these days, burnout can be intensified by the fact that there is an app for almost every aspect of our daily lives, and constant connectivity can be too much. Pandemic-era “Zoom fatigue” has spread to other areas of technology consumption, Coduto said, and online dating is not immune.

That doesn’t mean dating apps are going away anytime soon. Research shows their use has remained relatively stable over the past few years.

The Pew Research Center said 3 in 10 U.S. adults reported having ever used an online dating site or app in July 2022, identical to the share found in October 2019, months before COVID-19 upended much of daily life, including dating habits.

While there was a surge in downloads from new users at the start of the pandemic, Coduto’s research found a larger increase in usage by those who already had dating apps and were spending more time on them during lockdowns. But those same lockdowns also limited in-person interactions, and the ripple effects are still being felt today.

“The pandemic increased loneliness,” Saad said. “But it also increased hopelessness… because even apps weren’t meeting people’s needs for socialization.”

For Jennifer Stavros, a freelance journalist from Los Angeles, her time in the world of online dating has been “a mixed bag.” While she still tries out platforms like Tinder, Hinge, and OkCupid, Stavros notes that she’s experienced a recent cycle of matches that don’t go very far.

“I have a conversation… and everything will be fine. (But) then it will just fall or just hit a wall somewhere,” Stavros, 42, said. “It doesn’t make me feel very hopeful.”

Others add that it can also be easy to forget that there are people on the other end of those bumps and likes, leaving them feeling discarded as they look for connections.

“I think that feeling of swiping non-stop definitely contributes to burnout,” Coduto said. “You treat people like they’re a deck of cards because that’s what you’re seeing.”

Yumei He, an assistant professor of management sciences at Tulane University’s A.B. Freeman School of Business who has also been studying online dating, said that painful experiences like being ghosted can cause users to not trust a platform or assume all future interactions there will end the same way, leading them to disengage and decide that “dating is important, but my safety, my self (worth) is more important.”

And of course, burnout isn’t one-size-fits-all. Experiences can vary widely by gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity. Researchers have found that women and queer people, for example, are more likely to experience harassment than men, while racial and ethnic minorities are often fetishized in online dating spaces or experience other types of discrimination as a result of sexual racism.

The trauma of experiencing discrimination and other abuse on a dating app can make it very difficult to stay on or trust a platform again, Coduto said.

Companies are increasingly looking for ways to address all of this. Hinge, for example, launched “Hidden Words” in April, which allows its users to filter words, phrases and emojis in the “Likes” and comments they receive. A Hinge spokesperson says this feature is intended to help vulnerable groups (particularly women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people) avoid unwanted interactions based on personal preferences.

Gay dating and social networking app Grindr alerts users to potential safety threats in their area, which has been particularly critical for LGBTQ+ people in countries that may face police raids and other dangers, CEO George Arison said in an interview. Users can also “browse the net” in incognito mode, which is typically a paid feature, for free in some places, he added.

“All Grindr users face some type of challenge in their lives,” Arison said. “Our job has always been to create a safe environment for people to be who they are.”

When asked about burnout on dating apps in general, Arison said that “we haven’t seen any fatigue in Grindr users,” but noted that there is a growing hunger for innovation.

This is evidenced by the dozens of updates that have recently surfaced across various dating apps, from a new prompts option on Bumble that changes the way the platform has historically facilitated your “first move,” to Tinder’s “Matchmaker” feature that lets friends recommend profiles for each other, and Hinge’s tests of “your turn boundaries” to help fend off ghosting.

Several popular platforms, including Grindr and Tinder, say they have begun integrating artificial intelligence to help identify potential harmful messages and other safety precautions. Some are also exploring the possibilities of AI, such as using the technology to bolster matchmaking algorithms or offering users message suggestions and date ideas.

“We’re just scratching the tip of the iceberg,” said Anindya Ghose, a Heinz Riehl professor of technology and marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business, who believes AI could help alleviate burnout, but Transparency will be key.

These innovations may be a way to keep people hooked on dating apps. Espitia is among those who say she would be willing to see the platforms implement more updates, including the use of AI, if it helps improve connections with the people around her.

“We’re in this new era of finding love,” she said. “People are really hungry for love, and I think if that (technology) can help, why not?”

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