Love and Technology

An Ethnography of Dating App Users in Berlin

Fabian Broeker

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Paperback

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English

Routledge
06 May 2025

Research methods: general; Cultural studies; Gender studies: men; Sociology; Social & cultural anthropology

Series: Anthropology of Now

Love and Technology: An Ethnography of Dating App Users in Berlin explores how dating apps fit into Berlin’s unique dating culture and brand of intimacy and form a tangible nucleus around which users navigate dating rituals, romantic biographies, and digitally mediated intimacies within city space.

Drawing on the field of digital anthropology, this book takes the form of an immersive ethnography, resulting from 13 months of fieldwork with young dating app users, across Tinder, Bumble, and OkCupid, in Berlin. It argues that dating apps offer, or impose, depending on their context of use, a series of affordances. These affordances, and the technological devices they rely upon, exist through the relation between users and their environment, both in terms of physical spaces and cultural frameworks. The book posits that dating apps are woven into spatial practices and self-narrativisation, constituting imagined communities for their users, as well as a canvas, alongside the city of Berlin, against which to characterise romantic experiences.

Scholars interested in digital anthropology, ethnography, dating, and regional Berlin will find that Love and Technology offers a vibrant springboard for thinking through both theoretical and methodological concerns.

By: Fabian Broeker
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
Weight: 360g
ISBN: 9781032533544
ISBN 10: 1032533544
Series: Anthropology of Now
Pages: 184
Publication Date: 06 May 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Fabian Broeker is a fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science, in the Department of Media and Communications. His research interests encompass digital anthropology, intimacy, and new media.