Romance in times of crisis: Contingent social synchronization in accelerated love markets

Abstract

This work extends Rosa’s theory of social acceleration drawing on empirical findings from a qualitative study of online dating. Due to an involuntary deceleration in the pace of life during the COVID-19 crisis, online dating platforms moved from being accelerated love markets where competitive consumers made short-term exchanges, to supportive networks that helped them establish long-term relationships. This transformation occurred because consumers experienced contingent social synchronization—a process of temporal realignment after an unexpected desynchronization in pace of life, technological change, and social change. In contingent social synchronization, online daters modified their int..