Last week on The Guardian’s “Chips With Everything” podcast, host Leigh Alexander spoke to eHarmony’s Chief Scientist Steve Carter about the platform and its future updates.
Throughout the 30 minute podcast, Alexander and co-host Elena Cresci explore the benefits and downfalls of online dating and ask Carter for his take on these topics.
They talk about the decline in marriage rates in the UK over the past 10 years, how social media has changed the way we present ourselves to others and whether the internet can lead to loneliness.
Alexander and Cresci also explain that apps like Tinder have perhaps trivialised dating and made the process more gamified and they mention that this could have resulted in the idea that there is always someone better out there.
However, Carter explains that eHarmony is hoping to offer singles meaningful, long-lasting relationships by introducing humour-based compatibility assessors.
He explains that eHarmony is currently conducting research into the use of humour for matching members on the platform and says what this technology could look like.
The dating brand is currently asking its study participants to rate memes based on how amusing they deem them to be and is then using this information as a way of working out their humour type.
Carter says that eHarmony’s goal is to use these findings and create a meme-based humour assessor on the platform and use it to match members.
The company is also hosting speed dating events, which aim to prove whether or not sense of humour can have an affect on singles’ interest in someone and first date success.
As well as humour-based matching, Carter also explains that eHarmony is looking to add in a “green button”-style system to the platform, so that singles can let eHarmony know how well a first date went.
This is said to be part of the company’s efforts to improve singles’ offline date experiences – something that it is also using its humour testing for.
Carter also spoke about eHarmony’s interest in working out how likely it is that two singles will talk on the platform, which is something he mentioned earlier this month during his talk at the Institute of Ideas event on modern relationships.
To listen to the full podcast please click here.