Towards soft landing in an online dating service: bridging the ideal-real gap

With the penetration of the internet, the popularity of online dating services has surged, beginning with the United States as one of the main markets. Previous research has shown that the responses to the online profile increase with the attractiveness of the profile picture. This has led some users, particularly women, to use photo manipulating applications to beautify their photos. However, online dating eventually leads to meetings in person, and beautified pictures can generate negative impressions when the user is not as appealing in real life as in the profile images. This paper proposes a solution where, over time and with frequent interaction, users' profile photos are reversed to the original versions before heavy editing. Experiments have proven the potential of this method as test subjects could barely perceive the gradual change in profile pictures. Implementation of this method in dating services can prevent negative impressions that arise due to the gap between the beautified picture and the real life appearance and even allows for a better first impression.