I think it might be different for dating results, but as a Gen Z member myself it’s more pervasive in just general friend group culture. People don’t like to include others that have different phones than them, especially if the group is iPhone and the outsider is android. I have an android currently and it’s actually pretty frustrating. People will get genuinely upset at me that I don’t have an iPhone, or if I ask for a phone charger at a get-together, nobody in the building has USB-C.

On the one hand it is seen as a status symbol but on the other hand it’s seen as a symbol that you’re a real member of Gen Z.

For a lot of my peers, the person they date never belongs to their “friend group,” so it makes sense that they wouldn’t consider it as mattering as much for a partner as it does for the group of friends.

edit: a good analogy I think is that gen z’s look at phone ownership the same way a lot of car people look at owning a prius. They’re good enough cars with great mileage and a whole host of perfectly fine features, but if you own one then you just cannot belong to the in-group.