Self-Esteem, Attachment, and Dating Apps among Emerging Adults

In the modern era, dating apps are being used by emerging adults to help with these responsibilities. Emerging adults, who are often classified as people between the ages of 18 to 30 years, have been using dating apps more and more as they work through the challenges of romantic relationships in the digital age. Emerging adults are using dating apps to seek love, convenience of communication, affirmation of their value, or simply boredom. Therefore, the present study aims to find out the relationship between self-esteem and attachment among male and female emerging adults using or have used dating apps. Self-esteem can be defined as the subjective perception of an individual overall value or worth. In addition, the emotional link that develops between individuals is considered as attachment. In the current study, the first objective was to find out the relationship between self-esteem and attachment styles (Close, Depend, Anxiety) among male and female emerging adults using or have used dating apps. The further objective was to measure the difference in the level of self-esteem among male and female emerging adults using or have used dating apps. The last objective was to study the difference in the level of attachment styles (Close, Depend, Anxiety) among male and female emerging adults using or have used dating apps. There were total 120 emerging adults between the age group of 18 to 30 years who participated in the present study. The emerging adults were assessed using 2 tools as Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale (Rosenberg, M. 1965) and the Adult Attachment Scale (Collins, 1996). Results revealed that there is a negative correlation between self-esteem and close attachment among males and depend attachment in females. But there was a significant difference between self-esteem and anxiety attachment among males. Additionally, self-esteem in females was higher than males and the close attachment type and depend attachment type in males were higher than females, only the anxiety attachment was higher in females than males.