So Parties Aren’t Your Thing? Maybe Late Night Conversations Are…

What my poster represents is that people should download Tinder because overall, Tinder is mostly a beneficial application that can help the dater find potential dates or mates. I wanted my poster to apply to anyone who’s ever felt alone at parties, doesn’t get along well with people at social events, or just finds it hard in general to meet people in a social gathering or environment. Some people may find social gatherings intimidating, other people may find these events unworthy of their time or effort, and some people may just have bad experiences with meeting people at parties or get-togethers. People that feel like they are lonely, but don’t want to go out looking for love in unwanted places or undesirable places now have a new alternative than just traditional ways of dating or finding love.

One of the main purposes of my poster is to represent my audience’s concealed discomfort and embarrassment with finding potential partners within social functions, parties, etc., and to show them that they are not alone in their anxiety. From the top of my poster, I deem the question ‘So parties aren’t your thing?’ to seize the attention of anyone who empathizes with this issue. The question rightly applies to anyone in general who doesn’t enjoy parties, social gatherings, or any type of social festivities. Following the question is my first photo I put on the poster which is of an image of a girl in a crowded room, the look on her face shows that she is unhappy and is feeling insecure and alone. Her surroundings are dark and gloomy, which represents how intimidating the situation may be for her. Her body language too shows signs of discomfort, for she has her arms hugging her body- which indicates her thoughts of feeling like an outcast and her sensations of anxiety from being in an environment that distresses her. The other people in the room may be laughing and happy, but her posture shows that she is uncomfortable with her situation, and looks as if she’d rather be somewhere else- probably at home. She seems to not be the type of person to be excited about meeting people at parties.

I wanted my poster to be very relatable and to speak with my audience on a personal  level. I believe that many people can sympathize with the girl in the first photo, because there will always be people who don’t enjoy going to parties or find that going to parties is counteractive to meeting potential mates. To give off the feeling of secrecy that my audience is not alone in their “hidden embarrassment” in dealing with social events, I colored the background of my poster black to represent privacy and discretion. The black backdrop makes the poster look as if it is directly speaking to an individual, which can provide my audience with a feeling of comfort and confidentiality.

I also wanted my poster to illustrate that Tinder can be much more intimate, comfortable and fun because the user can be sitting at home alone in their room talking to an individual through Tinder rather than being at a crowded and loud obnoxious party. To demonstrate this, I contrasted the first picture with my second picture, which shows two people lying comfortably in their own bed probably alone at home at night. The two people look perfectly happy texting, and from their body language they look much more comfortable and “at home” than the girl in the first picture. The two people also seem to be enjoying a one-on-one conversation via messaging at the comfort of their own home. The photo is white and bright, with no intimidating aspects, which can illustrate that Tinder is not at all an intimidating experience compared to social functions. In fact, Tinder is a lighthearted application and not at all threatening, therefore the bright and light colors perfectly depict what I am trying to convey about Tinder. I contrasted the first photo with the second photo because I know that many people can relate to this situation, where they feel much more comfortable at home rather than at social environments. As well as the vivid picture, I wanted the fonts in my poster to transition from a boring plain font when presenting the first picture to a more appealing and flirty font when presenting the second photo. By doing so, my audience can clearly understand what message my poster is conveying.

Now people can have social interactions not just at parties or social gatherings but also at the comfort of your own home with Tinder. I feel that anyone who feels alone and insecure at social gatherings, or just finds it uncomfortable altogether, will be able to deeply relate with my poster and be interested in downloading Tinder.

First photo retrieved from Maite’s blog.

Second photo retrieved from Google Images.

Tinder Wins

Image from Google

In my past two posts, I evaluated two arguments about whether Tinder either helps the dater or hurts the dater. In my first post in my argument series, I argued that Tinder is indeed a positive tool in helping people date more conveniently. I reasoned that what makes Tinder such a helpful option is its’ immediacy and its’ proliferation of people available at one’s fingertips. In my second post, I argued that Tinder could hurt the dater because of the app’s focus on physical appearances- which can deter people from concentrating on making genuine connections. After much thought on the topic, I decided that Tinder should win this debate. Because of the technological era that we live in today, I believe that Tinder is a practical tool that definitely can help users with dating more than it can hurt them.

Given our generations’ dependency on technology and social media nowadays, its only natural that we’ve developed a more high-tech way to date. Our generation is virtually reliant on social media and the Internet, so it’s no surprise that outlets exist to further one’s love life. Thanks to modern-day technology, the act of dating is no longer confined to awkward first encounters in a dim bar or your roommate’s tacky party. Now, the act of dating can happen anytime, anywhere. From one’s bedroom at 2am in the middle of binge watching Netflix episodes, to sitting in your philosophy class waiting for your professor to finish his lecture on the illusion of time (which is actually a very interesting topic). Tinder gives its users their assistance by offering instantaneous gratification. Tinder is also a great platform that opens up one’s possibilities- on Tinder you have the power to meet hundreds or thousands of people that you might not have met otherwise if you were just dating casually without it. Tinder is basically like your wingman in a pocket!

Image from google

According to what Tinder CEO Sean Rad told Business Insider, the purpose of the app’s creation is to collect users’ information to essentially create an approachable platform that allows users to meet each other. “If you’re someone who’s hunting for a relationship, there’s this constant sense of rejection when not everyone you want to meet is open to meeting you back,” he says. “As the hunted, you feel very overwhelmed and that there’s this massive sense of noise. That dynamic is an inhibitor.” Tinder gives users the opportunity to meet people from a large selection, and presents users with a platform that allows them to make connections that they otherwise wouldn’t have the chance to. In my opinion, I believe that Tinder is a great playing field for dating without physically doing so- kind of like sitting on your couch being able to sift through a large crowd of men or women without the awkwardness or hassle, in order to find a potential partner.

As for Tinder’s superficiality, lets just say that superficiality isn’t the real issue here. Its people’s issue altogether, and to blame Tinder wouldn’t be accurate. According to Justin Mateen, the creator of Tinder, “I think Tinder is very honest. It emulates human interaction. It’s like walking into a coffee shop. When you first walk in, the first thing you notice about someone is his or her physical appearance. I’m either drawn to you or I’m not. And if we engage in conversation, we notice our commonalities — like mutual friends and mutual interests, which helps establish trust between two people. Tinder is just like that. It’s not superficial unless you want to call humans in general superficial.” When people are arguing that Tinder is superficial, what they’re really saying is that people in general are superficial. As I’ve stated in a previous post before, Tinder is what we make it.

And even when compared to other dating applications, Tinder tops them all because of its’ ease of use. According to a friendly Tinder user Maggie Lamaack, “Before Tinder, creating an online-dating profile was an exhaustive process of “What do you do for fun?” and “Do you like dogs or cats?” and “Describe yourself in five words or less.” But Tinder has made online dating easy. Maybe it’s that ease of use, or maybe Tinder found a way to market an app to millennials, but a solid majority of people on Tinder are using it to find relationships, or at least to date casually.” In a nutshell, what makes Tinder such a great device in helping daters date is its’ ease of use and its’ large expanded dating pool happily ready to be sifted though. If one were truly curious about the app, I would tell them to go ahead and download it, give it a go, as Tinder definitely doesn’t hurt to try.

Tinder’s Biggest Weakness

Sure dating apps such as Tinder help make the dating scene more efficient and convenient, but convenience and quickness does not mean that dating apps produce quality relationships or affect relationships in a positive manner. Unlike my last post, for this post I will be addressing my other argument, ‘How Tinder hurts the dater’, for my series question, “Does Tinder help the dater or does Tinder hurt the dater?” What I believe to be the best argument for what makes Tinder an inefficient tool in helping the dater is the obvious fact that even though Tinder does try to emulate the real dating world, Tinder does not do so successfully.

But why doesn’t Tinder emulate the ‘real’ dating world successfully? To sum it up, Tinder’s ineffectiveness has a lot to do with people being superficial about a person’s physical attractiveness. According to an article written by Thomas Chamorro, ‘The Tinder effect: psychology of dating in the technosexual era’, “Tinder is an extension of mainstream real-world dating habits, especially compared to traditional online dating sites.” What this entails is an important characteristic for dating app developers looking to perfect their apps by creating the perfect psychometric algorithms in dating. This means that Tinder thinks of first impressions to be most important in starting a relationship or conversation, online or offline. Hence, the application tends to focus their user matches on a person’s profile pictures as a first impression. Though this is a helpful feature for Tinder users, what psychologists found is that “people are a lot more superficial than they claim to be”, as people would rather spend 10 minutes judging pictures of total strangers online than to spend an hour evaluating a possible mate. Often, Tinder users gravitate towards basing all of their matches upon a user’s physical attractiveness, and because of this, users often forget that the most important aspect of a relationship/dating is a strong connection which they can build with the other party. Although appearance is significant for people looking for potential partners, physical attraction is just one way to find a potential mate and certainly is not the most important aspect of dating or a real relationship.

Those whom are looking to date via Tinder should realize just what they’re getting themselves into, and need to compare Tinder to real life dating by taking into consideration that the way people are looking for partners online differs heavily than how people look for partners in real life. According to Eli Finkel, a psychologist at Northwestern University, “The joint evaluation model … is likely to cause users to focus on certain qualities they think are important in a potential partner, perhaps to the neglect of qualities that actually are important.” Qualities that may be neglected, for example, are sense of humor, honesty, maturity, or respect. According to another article written by Christopher Koulouris titled ‘Looks Might Not Equal True Love,’ Tinder’s superficiality “might explain why we can assess the potential of a prospective partner in 10 minutes in real life, by spending actual face-to-face time and judging the rapport, as opposed to countless hours spent rifling through profiles. So maybe it’s just common sense: spending actual time with a potential new romantic partner might be the best way to go in the end, not that Tinder isn’t willing to help you get closer.” What Chris is basically saying is that meeting people in real life versus dating online is superior to online dating because the connections made in real life cannot be beat by connections made virtually because meeting people in real life is the best way to get to know someone not only verbally but also intimately.

Tinder’s Biggest Strength

Image from Google.

The first question to kick off my argument series is the debatable question “Does Tinder help the dater or does Tinder hurt the dater?” For this post, I will only be talking about how Tinder helps the dater, and my second post will be about how Tinder hurts the dater. The most important thing that I will be talking about in my post is what I think to be the best argument for what makes Tinder a positive tool in helping the dater, and what that is is that Tinder has a wide variety of people to choose and talk to at the tips of your fingers.

Tinder’s atmosphere is a very simple and fun interface that’s user friendly and a convenient tool to use if one is looking to immediately start making matches with other men/woman from a close proximity. From there, they quickly start making plans to meet with that person to get to know them better, and eventually start dating each other. From the get-go, users can decide whether or not they’re interested very quickly via physical appearance, without any verbal conversation whatsoever, and its up to them to decide whether they wish to meet face to face.

Image from Google.

What makes this application particularly helpful towards dating is the app’s immediacy and its proliferation of people available at a touch of a button. “It’s like being able to have an entire bar full of people at your fingertips which you can scan from the comforts of your home in pajamas,” says Jessica Wray, and online blogger for traveling. This feature of Tinder is especially useful for those whom are busy people and are always on the go, those don’t have enough time to find people to date, or for people who find it difficult to discover people around them that are looking for a relationship as well. This is indeed an advantageous feature of Tinder, as it allows its users to basically make connections and matches whenever they choose to do so without personal or physical limitations.

Not only are users browsing and picking whom not and whom they’re attracted to, all these people are directly from around the same location and area that the user is in- which accommodatingly lets users be able to meet up with no trouble as well as not having to worry about a long distance relationship- as long distance relationships are generally hard and inconvenient to keep up with. The location radius ranges from 10 to 100 miles from which potential matches are pulled. According to Eli J Finkel in an article he wrote titled ‘In Defense of Tinder’, “With Tinder, online dating is capitalizing on its strength — an expanded dating pool — and then accelerating the process of actually meeting someone. In this respect, it takes dating back to the pre-Internet era, to a time when people met potential partners, about whom they knew relatively little, at parties, bars, dog parks — situations in which people can get a strong initial sense of romantic compatibility.” Both Eli J Finkel and I believe that Tinder’s immediate ‘expanded dating pool’ is what makes Tinder a big sensation, and proves to be the best argument that can be made in that Tinder does help the dater more than it can hurt the dater.

Tinder’s New Features: Swipe Right Limiter + More! But Why?

Image from Google (click for source).

Recently this month, Tinder introduced to its users along with Tinder Plus a new service in Tinder that adds extra features like the ability to take back a swipe right/left or the ability to find matches in a different city. In addition to this, Tinder also introduced the new “right swipe limiter” also called Bouncer, which prevents users from swiping right too often within a 12 hour period unless they upgrade to Tinder Plus which is either $9.99 or $19.99 depending on ones’ age. As many would expect, most users whom have been using Tinder since the beginning and experience the “right swipe limiter” are becoming irritated by it because they feel as though there are being ripped off. They were used to the free unlimited swipes offered before the update. As well as the new bouncer feature, the app also brought to light new reporting features that gives users more control over the process of giving feedback about the date. Users can now report someone for inappropriate IRL (in real life) behavior once their meet-up or date is over (someone who might have been a huge jerk). The reporting process lets users report the reason each time they unmatch or report another user, which Tinder then uses to notify the upsetting party, giving them the opportunity to get their act together before they get completely kicked off the app.

The first question that I would like to address is why exactly did the company create the “swipe right” limiter? Well, the answer to that is pretty much straight forward. On March 6^th, a lawsuit was filed by a man named Billy Warner on behalf of all Tinder users which claimed that the new fees associated with Tinder Plus are “unlawful, unfair, and fraudulent.” Warner argued that Tinder purposely made the app free for the first months of its launch, and once these users became addicted- suddenly had the rug pulled from under them when users were suddenly forced to pay for the same free service. Tinder’s company spokesperson Rosette Pambakian responded by saying that the new limitation was not initially created to make its users upset and take their money (my own words). She says that the Bouncer is really meant to “curb the behavior of the chronic right-swipers, who are cheating the system by flooding it with right swipes.” She goes on to say that what makes Tinder a genuine experience is when the swipe is “valid”. “Tinder works best when swipes are genuine reflections of a user’s desire to connect. Limitations on right-swiping give users more incentive to make sure their swipes are honest.” But are these tactics working?

The second question that I would like to address: Is this new feature of Tinder “working”? According to a a blog post recently posted by Tinder, the company has seen “a small number of users who only swipe right just to see who likes them back.” Though they didn’t include what percentage of users have displayed this behavior, or how that percentage has decreased or increased over time. But the company indicates that the right swipe limiter is “working”. Ten days into launch, Tinder is seeing a 25 percent increase in the number of matches per right swipe, and a 25 percent increase in the number of messages per match. Plus, spam bots, Bouncer’s primary target, have decreased more than 50 percent since launch. “We made unlimited likes a paid feature because it would be a big enough barrier to entry for spam bots to cut out that usage, but we still want our users to have the freedom to use Tinder in whatever way they want,” says Tinder CEO Sean Rad.

 

So in the end, Tinder’s new updates on the application are working in favor for what the company wanted for its’ users- for them to have real and genuine online connections. But in turn, unfortunately, many users are upset with the new update and have since then been reviewing the application in app stores as 1 star ratings which has dropped the application’s star reviews severely from 4.5 stars to 1.5 stars.

Here are just a few recent reviews I found in the iPhone application store made from upset users. (Click to enlarge)

Tinder: For What Purpose and Why?

If one were to envision what most people think about Tinder, the responses would probably be unenthusiastic. They would say that Tinder is shallow, dangerous, and corrupt. Though this may be so, still millions of users are downloading and using the app on a daily basis. A question that I would like to answer now that I have done an acceptable amount of research is the question: For what purposes do the majority of Tinder consumers use the smart phone dating application? It is it solely for the “corrupt” and “shallow” purposes such as one looking for a quick hook up, or are the purposes for the use of this application just for the app’s dating service? As it turns out, the app creators’ intentions had nothing to do with providing hook-up services (as stated in my last post), and even more surprisingly- according to my latest research, the app creators never intended for the app to be necessarily seen as a dating service rather they wanted to create a communal app that would introduce two strangers into a sociable interaction.

According to co-founder of Tinder Justin Mateen, he’s insistent that Tinder ISN’T a “hookup” app aimed to lure people together for a one-night stand. He even goes further to say that online speed dating services was not the initial inspiration behind the app. ”We never intended it to be a dating platform. It’s a social discovery platform, facilitating an introduction between two people,” says Mateen. “It’s in the messaging of the company, but also in the small details: everything we’ve done is intended to make sure it’s not a hookup app.” In actuality, Tinder is not happy about how people whom are already in a relationship are feeling shut off from the app, despite the app’s reputation as a ‘hook-up factory’.

(Photo taken from Sam Stein’s blog.)

And contrary to popular belief as well, though the app received its unbecoming nickname ‘the hook up app’, a 2013 survey was done through SessionM (sampled 435 people) which asked its participants the question: What is the primary reason you use Tinder? The majority of the survey’s participants answered (with the multiple choice answer) “I’m just curious”. The multiple-choice answer titled “I’m looking for a quick hook up” was the least chosen answer out of the available choices. Incredibly, according to the survey, a majority of the users on Tinder are more concerned with just what the hype of the app is all about rather than looking for a one-night stand. This is very surprising, since many people label the application as one the the best hookup apps out there. The second most chosen answer also infers that people probably just download the application and use it as a game, just to see how many matches they can make- which is also surprising because you would think that out of all the matches one has, they would at least go on a date with one of them. But this is just a small, ambiguous poll to say the least.

Another article that I read (written by Ariana Mushnik) was more focussed on how college students were socially evolving around the app by using Tinder almost like an efficient dating tool in order to find potential suitors to hook up with. Through reading this article, the purpose of the app’s use was more clear to me than the above findings shown because I found a connection between the SessionM survey results and the overall point of this article- the connection being that college students initially downloaded the application out of curiosity though as time went on the students started going out on dates with their Tinder matches which inevitably led to their hook-up rendezvouses.

As previously stated in my last post, a person’s looks are what initially pulls a suitor in. An additional point that Mushnik makes is that people who use Tinder are in it for its’ simplicity, straightforwardness, and focus on a person’s physical attractiveness- not for long-term relationships. “I think some people are hesitant to use OkCupid or other sites that may make it seem like they are looking for a real relationship,” says Cailey Indech, (a senior biology college student, one of Mushniks’s interviewee’s). “These people resort to Tinder because it is an easier, more casual way of meeting people,” she says.

Another college student named Sarah Flood also found the convenience in using the dating application like a tool. Sarah is a sophomore biology major and she met her boyfriend of a year on Tinder. She said that she was initially interested in downloading the application because of the apps’ convenience whilst connecting with other people. “It takes one press to link up with Facebook and talk with people who also want to talk to you,” she said. She believes that because there are a huge number of students on campus, meeting people and forming connections with them can be a tough task. I too believe that because of campus’s large population, this makes it hard to form relationships with just anyone. She also goes on to say that she’s had difficulty making male friends because of her busy schedule- being in a sorority and on the lacrosse team. “Tinder is a way around all that, in a way. It’s not awkward,” she said. “You don’t have to get somebody’s number at a party; you just instantly talk to them.” When meeting her boyfriend for the first time, Sarah said it was kind of awkward at first, but within the first few minutes of meeting each other, she it was “like we’ve known each other for a really long time.”

Photo from Google.

It is plain to see here that though the creators of Tinder didn’t initially design the app to become a hook-up app, and though many people tend to deny their use of the app as a hook up tool, the unavoidable truth is that the application is indeed mainly used and prospered as a hook-up gadget for society, though in some cases such as Sarah’s, people can also find love.

The Not So Silent Truth About Dating Apps

As I continue my research on dating apps, I am more focused on the dating app Tinder and how the notorious application shapes the hook-up culture. But I recently ran across an article that discusses an age-old truth about people and dating, which is a very obvious truth- one that which mostly everyone already knows and which has completely reshaped my vision and outlook on the topic. Before I was reminded about the blatant truth (which is concentrated on people and dating), my vision was solely focused on how Tinder was shaping society’s hook-up culture. But when I read of the truth, I realized something that I was missing out on deeply about dating apps and the hook-up culture as a whole.

Image from Google.

What this truth entails, according to information collected by Nick Bilton the author of the article ‘Tinder, the Fast-Growing Dating App, Taps an Age-Old Truth’, “All that really matters, according to scientific researchers I spoke with from Northwestern University and Illinois State University, at least in the beginning of relationship, is how someone looks.” This truth is simple, yet very powerful. What I realized about this truth that I hadn’t realized before with the dating app hook-up culture or how the app is affecting our hook-up culture, is that it isn’t just about what the app is contributing to our society’s hook-up culture, rather, its about what society is contributing to the Tinder app!

According to the article; what other dating apps and online services (such as Match.com and eHarmony) are doing is following a scientific-like procedure that they (online dating services) believe to be the ultimate foundation towards conceiving love. But what these apps are doing wrong that Tinder is doing right is that they aren’t focussing on the simplicity of the first step in any romantic relationship- physical attraction. Essentially, what I realized is that Tinder has become what people made out of it. According to the article, Tinder is actually trying to stray away from its nickname ‘the hook-up app’. So the CEO’s of Tinder actually had no pure intentions of creating a hook-up app, rather they wanted to create a casual dating app.

From this new piece of perspective I gained, I was able to understand the rest of the article’s purpose, which is how one’s looks are a very important factor in dating and relationships. According to the article, “While companies like eHarmony still assert they have a “scientific approach” to helping people fall in love, some dating sites are starting to acknowledge that the only thing that matters when matching lovers is someone’s picture”. Because people naturally gravitate towards others because of their appearance, Tinder is the perfect candidate of a dating app. The application has such a massive user base because of its simplicity and casual aura of non-commitment and just a friendly, less intimidating impression for its’ users.

Photo from Google.

Since the application has used appearance as the main focus of connecting people together, the application has since been labeled “shallow“, and described as “destroy(ing) what little confidence you have” by a man named David Wygant. David was curious to see what all the rage was about with Tinder, so he downloaded the app and started using it. His first impression of the application was that Tinder met his “manly” needs for “instant gratification”. Tinder presented to him real and genuine local women that he could look at and potentially sleep with. He said he “felt like I was looking through some kind of weird catalogue. I didn’t have to say or do anything, except hit X or heart to say whether I was interested.” As his experiences with Tinder progressed, he grew more and more disappointed with his findings and came to a realization that Tinder can make a person feel ugly. “You put a picture of yourself up, and after 48 hours, nobody finds you attractive. You’ve lost all your looks. You no longer have it. The world decided you’re ugly.” He goes on further to say that Tinder isn’t for people who have weak hearts or aren’t thick skinned, because if you aren’t an “attractive” person, then you’ll just end up feeling sorry for yourself. I think that what David has to say about Tinder significantly connects with how shallow Tinder’s community can be, instead of truly giving someone the change to get to know them, people have the power to ‘X’ them out of their feeds even if that person was interested in them.

A question that I have answered now is the question, “Are dating apps affecting the hook-up culture?” and though my answer does not directly answer this question, it definitely relates to it. Society as a whole shapes the hook-up culture- not just dating apps, because the dating apps are what society makes of it. It is because of humans and their natural gravitation towards a person’s looks. The app itself only encourages and emboldens people’s habits of interest through physical appearance, and the application then manifests this natural habit that humans have into a “hooking up” trend.

Tinder, Zoosk, OkCupid.. How are these apps affecting the Hook-up culture?!

Today’s generation consists of a lot of smart phone usage, so much that it has become a part of our daily lives. A person’s life seems almost as of more of importance through one’s virtual ‘Instagram’ and ‘Twitter’, so its only natural that virtual online dating has become a fad as well. And what I mean by virtual dating is online dating through smartphone applications. What intrigues me about this topic is that throughout history, men and women have unremittingly been interacting in adultery and premarital sex, but only recently in the 21^st century, I believe that men and women have been more open minded and unapologetic of their sex lives as juxtaposed to the past. Currently, I believe that more people are further willing to let their dating/sex lives more known by sharing their personal info on the internet with what is more commonly used today- dating apps. Dating apps such as ‘Tinder’, ‘Zoosk’, ‘OkCupid’, and ‘How About We’ are currently shaping today’s hookup culture into a technologically advanced virtual interaction.

Click photo for short video on what dating apps have to offer.

As of right now, my personal thoughts on the matter of dating applications and its consequences on our society’s hookup culture are pretty slim and not so comprehensive. To add in my own personal experience, I have used a few dating apps in the past by senselessly downloading the dating smartphone applications out of curiosity or lonesomeness. I have since then found most of the apps to consist of men with only one goal in their mind- a one-night stand or a short-term cyber or physical sexual relationship. Not only have I myself associated with online dating apps, but also so have nearly everyone in my life- my cousins, my best friends, and even some of my aunts and uncles.

Something a lot of people may not know and that is contrary to current beliefs about the current hookup culture in association with dating apps is that young adults are not having as much sex as people think. According to a credible article written by Teddy Wayne in The New York Times, “A 2013 University of Portland study surveyed 18- to 25-year-olds who had completed at least one year of college, comparing results from 1988 to 1996 to those from 2002 to 2010. Fewer respondents from the more recent “hookup era” reported having had sex within the past year (59.3 percent versus 65.2 percent), and lower numbers said they had had multiple partners.” I believe that this bit of information is critical to note in association with dating apps, because dating apps like Tinder demonstrates otherwise. According to an article written by Laura Stampler titled ‘Inside Tinder: Meet the Guys Who Turned Dating Into an Addiction’, “Tinder, a wildly popular mobile dating app, has in just 17 months, become something of a cultural phenomenon. Its obsessed user base, made up mostly of 18-24 year-olds, has grown by a million in the last sixty days alone.”

If Tinder is so widely popular and used by millions all across America, why has it been reported that lower numbers are having sex with multiple partners? Not only are there millions of people across America using the infamous application, many of them are crazed for sex! According to a Tinder user Katelyn, “I was using tinder for about three months. The first two months seemed fun, but mostly everyone is on there for sex. I meet some guys who turned out crazy. I deleted the app, because in the end it’s all a cat-and-mouse game.” Katelyn isn’t the only one experiencing people crazy for sex on the application. I myself, who has had some experience with the application, would too run into men that were only looking for a quick hook-up.

VVV A short fun video on the dating app Tinder VVV

What I would like to find out is why exactly the decrease in young people’s sexual activity is decreasing when such dating apps are rising in popularity? Is it because they are too consumed in their virtual lives and rarely go out and communicate with people? Or does dating online through dating apps actually negate the hookup culture?