Predicting Depressive Symptoms of Swipe-Based Online Dating Applications Users with Ghosted Experience

Previous research has shown that being ghosted can harm the mental health of online dating application users. However, there is scarce data on the Indonesian population. This study aims to test the moderating effect of automatic thoughts on the role of ghosted experiences in predicting depressive symptoms of swipe-based online dating applications user in Indonesia. A correlational analysis of 173 online dating application users aged 18–29 showed a weak to moderate association between the frequency of ghosted experiences, automatic thoughts, and depressive symptoms. However, regression analysis results showed that automatic thoughts did not moderate the experience of being ghosted in predicting depressive symptoms. Additionally, automatic thoughts directly predict higher depressive symptoms of ghosted online dating application users. Implications for this study in developing online dating applications that support users' well-being were discussed.