In this digitalization era, we  can't spend a day without being engaged with technologies, like phones, computers, internet, and so on. We use those technologies to engage with the outside world through social media and other platforms provided. Few years ago, we were surprised by the increasing popularity of dating apps, like Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, and League. Those apps claim that they can actually make someone find the love of their lives easily with just a swipe or a click. Until now, many people from every age level still use those apps for the same reason or for some ulterior motives they have deep inside.
Generally, economics is a study that deals with how to allocate scarce resources and make choices that best utilize what is available, or in other words, efficiently. Scarce resources classification can either be found in terms of natural resources, like oil, natural gas, and other types, such as human and man-made resources. Other than that, we can still consider one thing that's pretty fundamental in our lives as a kind of scarce resource, which is love. Now, why is love a scarce resource? The answer is because it is rare, difficult to acquire, and sometimes when we already had it, it can disappear suddenly without further notice.
A 'Matching Market'
Some people say that finding love is like finding new homes, cars, and other things that we want to acquire in some point of our lives. When you want to buy a car for example, you have to choose one car that really suits your preference from the ocean of choices available. You can either check every car saloons you desire or even find sufficient amount of information through internet to find the right car to buy. When you find the right car, you can call the seller immediately to make a deal -- and that's it.Â
You can drive the car of your dream right away after you pay for the deal. Alas, love does not work like that. You can easily trade for cars because car can be calculated with currency, but love has no currency. Rather than you trading with currency, when you want to find love, you trade based on information.
Another thing that makes it different from buying a car is that when you want to find  love, you need to have mutual interest in each other. You can't simply be interested in someone and go out with him without his consent. And that's what the dating apps do. They try to match your interest with others that also have interest in you.Â
The golden rule in here is not only you do have to choose, but you also have to be chosen. Apparently, this works exactly like the theory that Alvin Roth, a Nobel laureate, developed from other economists' papers, Lloyd Shapley and David Gale, for what we know now as 'matching markets'.
Matching market theory is a mathematical framework attempting to define the formation of mutually beneficial relationships. It studies the macroeconomic outcome where two searchers or agents seek out each other in order to come to an agreement. This is done to prevent the inefficiency called as search friction. Search friction occurs when buyers have trouble finding goods that they are looking for and sellers may not be able to find buyers to buy their goods.Â
Traditionally, we need a model to actualize this formation in match-making situation. It usually uses an algorithm model called "deferred acceptance algorithm" or well-known as Gale-Shapley algorithm. The goal of this algorithm is to find stable matches, which means no pair that would prefer to match with other pair rather than the assigned partner. Here's an example of stable matches from four pairs (assuming men are proposing):
The Gale-Shapley algorithm has been used widely in match-making situation since its origin in the 1960s and unexceptionally until right now in dating apps. But of course, the algorithm that's being used in dating apps is much more complicated because it also calculates based on homophily, a love for the same, which is a concept that depicts how a person is link up with one another that is similar to him/her.Â
