Distance, time, and friends: system-generated cues and impression formation in mediated spaces

More people are turning to apps for connecting with others nearby for a range of relational goals (i.e. dates, sex). These apps themselves constrain profiles in certain ways, while also supplementing them with additional system-generated cues. The proposed experiments are designed to investigate three such popular cues (distance, time, and number of friends) and how they affect the impression formation process in this context of varied relational goals.