At 18, the Guardrails Come Off. Are We Preparing Young Adults for Dating Apps?

An eighteenth birthday changes surprisingly little overnight.

The person who wakes up legally an adult is largely the same person who went to bed seventeen the night before. But the boundaries around them begin to change.

Permission gives way to conversation. Rules become advice. Dating becomes one of the decisions young adults increasingly make for themselves.

Australia's eSafety Commissioner recognises that transition. In its guidance "Talking about online child sexual abuse with 13 to 18 year olds", eSafety notes that for young people aged 16 and over, relationship decisions increasingly become their own. Dating apps are intended for people aged 18 and over, while parents are encouraged to remain a trusted source of guidance around relationships, consent, privacy and online safety.

That raises an interesting question:

What do we teach young people about the first time the internet starts introducing them to potential romantic partners?

At some point, parenting stops being about making the decision and starts being about helping someone develop the judgement to make it themselves.

The conversation changes at 18

Parents should not choose who their adult children date, read their conversations or supervise their relationships.

Growing up involves privacy, independence and sometimes making mistakes. But independence does not make parents irrelevant.

A small longitudinal study published in Developmental Psychology, "A longitudinal study of conversations with parents about sex and dating during college", followed 30 young adults through college. Researchers Elizabeth Morgan, Avril Thorne and Eileen Zurbriggen found that parent conversations tended to become more open, reciprocal and relationship-focused.

The study is small, but its underlying observation is useful: the parental role changes.

The question becomes less, "How do I stop my son or daughter from doing something risky?" and more, "Have I helped them recognise what feels healthy, respectful and safe?"

What does a dating app teach us to notice first?

Imagine telling a teenager for years not to judge someone entirely by how they look, to value kindness, protect personal information and take their time.

Then they turn 18 and enter a digital dating environment where, very often, the first information presented about another person is their photograph.

That does not make dating apps bad. Physical attraction matters.

But design matters too. An interface influences what we notice first and whether we stop, swipe, read, compare or move on.

That makes emerging research worth considering.

In July 2026, Communications Psychology published "A systematic review and meta-analysis of the mental health correlates of swiping-based dating app use".

Researchers Herald Cela and Guilherme Wood analysed 27 studies involving 21,263 people. They found small-to-moderate associations between swiping-based dating-app use and outcomes including emotional distress, appearance concerns and body-image disturbance.

The researchers did not conclude that dating apps caused those outcomes. The available evidence cannot establish that.

But the findings raise a worthwhile design question: what happens when dating begins with visually driven evaluation and a large volume of potential alternatives?

Perhaps the important question isn't whether dating apps are shallow. It is: what behaviours does a dating product encourage?

Safety is part of the design too

For someone entering online dating for the first time, appearance is only one consideration.

There is also pace.

How quickly should strangers know where you live or work? When should you move to private messaging? How much identifying information should you reveal? When and where should you meet?

In its "Online dating" guidance for young people, Australia's eSafety Commissioner discusses risks including pressure to share intimate material, revealing personal or location information, catfishing, cyberstalking and unsafe in-person meetings. Its advice includes limiting personal information and meeting for the first time in a busy public place while ensuring somebody trusted knows the plan.

None of this means young adults should avoid online dating.

It means the environment in which those relationships begin deserves scrutiny.

We often ask whether users are behaving safely. Perhaps we should also ask whether platforms make safer, more deliberate behaviour easier.

What if we changed the order?

That question sits behind an Australian dating experiment called Odasiti.

Its premise is deliberately unusual:

What if you met someone before seeing what they looked like?

Odasiti removes photos and videos from the dating journey. People initially encounter one another through private profile names and an Oda, a penguin character that represents them inside the platform.

Instead of beginning with photographs, people begin with questions about values, communication, conflict, lifestyle and relationships.

If both choose to continue, communication progressively develops through direct text, voice notes and real-time voice conversation.

Eventually, if they decide to meet, the photograph still never arrives.

They meet in person.

That is the reveal.

It is not an argument that physical attraction does not matter.

It is an experiment in what happens when physical attraction does not have to go first.

What if the first question wasn't "Do I like how this person looks?" but "Do I like how this person thinks?"

Not parent-approved. Adult-chosen.

There is an important line here.

Odasiti should not become the dating app parents choose for their children. An eighteen, twenty or twenty-four-year-old is entitled to make their own decisions about relationships, platforms and partners.

Nor can any dating platform eliminate risk or guarantee that every person using it will be truthful, respectful or compatible.

Perhaps the best outcome is not control. It is conversation.

A parent might ask:

What does the app encourage you to judge people on?

Do you feel pressed to share things before you're comfortable?

What information are strangers learning about you?

And when you meet somebody, do you feel as though you actually know anything about them?

Those questions matter regardless of which dating app somebody chooses.

Not parent-approved. Adult-chosen. The goal isn't to control a young adult's dating life. It is to help good judgement survive the transition into it.

The first dating app is part of growing up now

Previous generations had their own awkward transitions into adult relationships. Today's young adults have inherited another one: dating platforms that may introduce them to hundreds or thousands of potential partners.

Parents cannot accompany their children through every adult decision. They shouldn't.

But the values they spend years trying to instil do not suddenly become obsolete at 18.

Privacy still matters. Consent still matters. Character still matters. Safety still matters.

And learning not to reduce another human being entirely to their appearance probably still matters too.

Maybe the goal is not to keep young adults away from dating apps.

Maybe it is to help them think about what kind of dating environment they want to participate in.

At some point, the guardrails have to come off. Good judgement has to take their place.

And perhaps dating platforms have a responsibility to think about what happens next.

Odasiti is exploring one possibility: meet the person before the picture.

Research and further reading

eSafety Commissioner

Talking about online child sexual abuse with 13 to 18 year olds

Guidance for parents of older teenagers, including relationships, online dating and the transition toward independent decision-making.

Online dating

Advice for young people about privacy, consent, personal information and preparing for an in-person meeting.

Cela, H. & Wood, G. (2026)

A systematic review and meta-analysis of the mental health correlates of swiping-based dating app use

Communications Psychology.

Systematic review and meta-analysis of 27 studies involving 21,263 participants examining associations between swiping-based dating-app use and psychological outcomes. The available evidence does not establish causation.

Morgan, E. M., Thorne, A. & Zurbriggen, E. L. (2010)

A longitudinal study of conversations with parents about sex and dating during college

Developmental Psychology, 46(1), 139-150.

A small longitudinal study examining how parent-young adult conversations about dating and sexuality changed during the college years.