Tinder Dating App: The 'Booty Call' of Apps Hits Over 50 Million Matches
The days of personal ads in local papers and flyers have come a long way. Now, with all of the technological advances of the past few years, casual sex is at your fingertips.
Since its launch last September, the dating app Tinder, has been making waves. This May, Tinder hit over 50 million matches.
“The whole Tinder experience is designed to be familiar and emulate the way we interact in real life—digitally reproduced, enhanced, and made mobile,” says the App's site.
Tinder uses the Facebook platform to allow users to log in and search for singles in their neighborhood. If users are mutually interested in each other, Tinder then sets up a chat. It takes away the rejection aspect: “If both users give each other the thumbs up, then Tinder sets up a chat. The genius (apart from the simplicity — it uses your Facebook profile photos) is that no one finds out about unrequited lust, freeing up nervous singletons to be completely honest,” according to the Telegraph.
While there are many apps on the market claiming to bridge hearts and find soul mates, Tinder’s goal is to merely introduce people who don’t know each other. Some simplify it and call it the iPhone version of a booty call.
“There are a lot of great platforms that help us communicate with people we already know, but there isn't a way for me to meet new people,” said Tinder CEO and founder Sean Rad, 27 in an interview.
Some users have said that the app is “easy to use” and “non-threatening.” However, the only way to access Tinder is through Facebook and this has left a few people wary. Users have also said that Tinder is only useful for validating the attractiveness of a potential match.
“More of a self-esteem boost (or opposite) because it’s based on very shallow principles,” said one user in a review.
Some other popular dating apps include:
- Zoosk
- eHarmony
- OkCupid
- MeetMe
- Badoo
- How About We
These online/social media dating sites might seem like a fast and easy way to meet a potential partner, but some mental health experts might disagree. According to Dr. Key Sun a psychologist, social worker and a professor of law and justice at Central Washington University, online dating is a poor way to find love.
“First, it is an opposite of face-to-face interaction, Dr. Sun says. "Second, it does not help heal the emotional pains of some online daters. Online dating is a category-based, rather than an interaction-based process.”
On the other hand, supporters of online dating believe that because users are forced to actually get to know their partner on a purely intellectual level, the chances of the relationship lasting are greater.
Eli Finkel, Associate Professor of Social Psychology at Northwestern University, believes that “online dating is a marvelous addition to the ways in which singles can meet potential romantic partners.” On the other hand, it's not perfect. “Users need to be aware of its many pitfalls,” he told Psychological Science.
The bottom line with online dating is to understand that by entering into this world the dynamics for how a person is approached changes. But if you’re interested in trying something new, go ahead give one of these apps a shot — you might be surprised at what you find.