Gossip, since our pre-tribal dawn, has been a useful way of regulating social standings and ensuring community cohesion. In the online social media and dating app sphere, however, all this has changed, with men and women responding to this new age differently. Some women are finding online spaces becoming increasingly misogynistic and threatening, with some men finding themselves excluded and frustrated.

Today’s guest, Dr Jenny van Hooff, is a sociologist at Manchester University specialising in personal life and contemporary intimacies. Dr van Hooff’s research explores the dynamics of couple relationships, love, commitment, infidelity, and break-ups across different stages of life, including examining the significance of friendships and the experiences of dating app users.

She co-directs the Contemporary Intimacies, Sexualities, and Genders Research Group, an interdisciplinary network that investigates the evolving landscape of personal relationships and intimacies. The Research Group challenges how we think about intimate relationships, gender relations, eroticism and sexuality to advance social justice. Jenny’s current projects focus on midlife intimacy, relationship breakdown, and digital dating practices. Dr van Hooff wrote a 2013 book entitled: Modern Couples?: Continuity and Change in Heterosexual.

In the episode we reference the books The Value of Others and Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism. Produced by the Bloomsbury Institute London.