Have you ever played on of those choose your own story games? Lantern is just like that, except with a possible date waiting at the end of the journey.
While most dating apps cater to different clientele, they all mostly function in the same way. You see a profile, with some pictures and a bio, curated by the individual. You swipe or click or something along those lines indicating whether or not you’d potentially like to “match” or connect with that person.
This method has been the go-to interface for dating apps for the last several years, but it’s not without its flaws. The constant swiping can be quite tedious, and those swipes are often based on pictures alone. Maybe, just maybe, a user might consider a brief bio in their decisions but for the most part, these choices are based on looks alone. These choices can then often lead to disappointing connections and conversations that never go past a shallow level. It’s also hard to break the ice when all you know about someone is that they’re blonde, beautiful, and capable of finding a witty remark to use for a bio.
Lantern picked up on these flaws and aims to open up dating apps to a whole new level. Instead of giving users pictures of people in their area and asking them to flip through them, Lantern gives users a question. The questions are private, but users are paired by the compatible responses they give to these questions. Once you answer a question, the next screen will show you other people who answered in the same way. The questions are fun and light-hearted, but allow for a genuine connection and spark a great beginning to a conversation.
The psychology behind the technology is what really fuels this project. It’s based on the work of M Gary Neuman, a psychotherapist and bestselling author. The app aims to use his psychological principles about people and relationships to ask questions that will match compatible personalities in a meaningful way.
In addition to its scientific backing, Lantern adds an element of fun into all this. It effectively blurs the line between dating app and game, so that online dating no longer has to feel like work. With this new form of connecting, there’s no more swiping and endless frustrating dead-end conversations, which we all have to admit has lost its novelty in recent years.
“Online dating began to feel like a second job. We lost that sense of adventure and excitement that comes with meeting new people,” says Lantern creator, Yehuda J Neuman. “So we created an experience that makes the process of dating fun, introspective and connective… we all deserve to find someone who appreciates how unique we are.”
