Abstract
In this 21stcentury, people are using more technology because it is easier and very convenient. The technology especially the Internet is allowing people to find new friends, keeping in touch with old friends or it can be just sharing their hobbies and passions with the outside world. This paper will talk about how dating applications has changed the way people meet and communicate with each other and how people tend to use dating apps to seek their soulmate online. Nowadays, people who are so busy with their daily activities and work and they do not have time to connect with new people, let alone seeking for a sexual or romantic partner. There are a lot of dating applications that people use to find their sexual or romantic partner. Dating apps is also useful for people who are in the LGBTQ+ communities. This paper will specifically talk about the most popular apps which are Tinder and Grindr.
Keywords: Web 2.0, communities, online dating, Tinder, Grindr, LGBTQ+
Introduction
Advance Web 2.0 technologies have allowed Internet users to easily and more efficiently participate and collaborate in the online communities. There are a lot of positive and negative impacts of the advanced Web 2.0 technologies including online dating. The users of the online dating apps are now having the ability to use the platform to find someone from different ethnicities, religions and sexual orientations. Dating applications are also giving easy access for LGBTQ+ communities to find their potential sexual or romantic partners easily. Online dating is also changing the way people connect with each other and how they find their potential romantic or sexual partner. This paper will also talk about the differences between Tinder and Grindr and what are the advantages and disadvantages of having a profile in those dating apps.
Web 2.0 Technologies on Online Dating
According to Cormode and Krishnamurthy (2008), Web 2.0 can be described as technological advancements that allows the users to be able to add to and edit the information space. In Web 2.0, it makes the user to be able to collaborate and interact with another user on the Internet (Anderson, 2007). Web 2.0 is an amazing place for users to create and form online communities. The advancement of Web 2.0 technologies can connect with people who have the same interests and it open the door for endless opportunities and possibilities of online communication. What is online communities? According to Liu, Wagner and Chen (2014), online communities is a social network that allows people to connect with each other based on their interests and practices. These communities are usually communicated regularly over a common communication medium. The advantage of participating in an online community are people can share experiences and knowledge and interact with each other and therefore they can build relationships (Liu, Wagner & Chen, 2014). In this case, online dating communities are a growing industry that provide a communication channel for Web users all over the world, who are looking for a potential romantic or sexual partner (Quensel, 2010). As a growing Web 2.0 technologies, there are a lot of online dating apps and online dating website all over the web. These apps and website allow people to find a dating community that they can personally suited with their needs. For this paper, I will talk about Tinder and Grindr. For example, Grindr is an online dating apps that helps people who like the same gender to find their soulmate. Since in the LGBTQ+ communities it is very hard for people to find soulmate in real life. Although, these dating apps have advantages and disadvantages. At the end of the day, people who are using these platforms are looking for a potential long-term romantic partner.
The history of online dating
Online dating has been in the society since 1995. In 1995 match.com went live (Emerging Technology, 2017). Match.com was the first dating website. Online dating was not as popular in the society like today. In the early 2000s, a new wave of dating websites such as OKCupid was live (Emerging Technology, 2017). Everything has changed in the early of 2012 because that was when the first of dating apps was arrived in the online communities. In 2012, Tinder was the first dating apps. Although, online dating was not popular because people were still preferring to find their potential sexual or romantic partner in a traditional way. In a way where they can meet in a club, coffee shop, on the street or in universities.
Tinder? What is it?
Tinder is a free dating apps that web users can download on their mobile phone (Newett, Churchill & Robards, 2017). Tinder relies on another social media such as Facebook. The app users can sign up with their phone number or they can sign up with their Facebook account. When the users sign up from their Facebook account, their information will automatically come up in their Tinder profile. The information is including their name, their age and their gender (Newett, Churchill & Robards, 2017). After the profile is done, the users can upload their best photos and they also can add their biography box to attract with their potential match (Newett, Churchill & Robards, 2017). Unfortunately, on Tinder the users can only choose female or male as their gender. After the profile is done, the users can start swiping right if they found a potential match or they can swipe left to ignore.
Grindr? Is it the same as Tinder?
Grindr is a unique dating app that allows queer, gay and bisexual men to find their potential romantic or sexual partner. Grindr was launched in 2008 that allows queer, gay and bisexual men to seek romantic or sexual partner who are closest to them (Stephenson, 2018). Grindr is quite popular among the gay and bisexual teens who may not have any likeminded friends and they are also looking to make connection whether it is socially or romantically, either way it helps the gay and bisexual teens to find potential partner (Stephenson, 2018). Since, the app was launched, 10 million users around the world has downloaded the app (Stephenson, 2018). Although, according to Bloodworth (2018), Grindr is more suited to find sexual encounters and hook ups. Grindr and Tinder have many similarities which, one of the similarities is that Grindr is also a free dating apps that the users can download on their mobile phone (Bloodworth, 2018). When the users created an account, they can upload their best photo and a small description about themselves (Bloodworth, 2018).
Statistics
Each year the number of users on Tinder and Grindr are increasing. Although, the number of users on Tinder is a lot more than the number of users on Grindr. As mentioned above, Grindr is only targeting gay, queer and bisexual men whilst Tinder is for every straight, gay, queer and bisexual women and men. According to Flood (2019), Tinder is one of the most well-known dating apps with users in 196 countries. The app itself have approximately 3.8 billion users (Aripaka, 2018). Since the launch of Grindr in 2009, there are approximately 3.8 million people uses the app (Smith, 2019).
The pros of dating apps
There are a lot of advantages of using online dating website and applications. Online dating is easier and convenient for busy people. The users can use dating apps wherever and whenever (Lusinski, 2016). Secondly, on dating apps like Tinder, the users can only get message from people that they have swipe right. Online dating is convenient for people who always full schedule and they do not have time to meet with new people. Not only for busy people, online dating is also making introverts’ life easier when it comes to find potential sexual or romantic partner. People in the LGBTQ+ communities also grateful for the existing of dating apps because it is already hard for them to find partner in real life. At least in dating apps, they have a choice. They can personalized their profile and they can use preferences whether they want to seek female or male partner or maybe they are interested in both genders. Lastly, most of dating apps are based on their geolocation so it is very useful for people that want to have a date with someone closes to them (Lusinski, 2016).
Cons of dating apps
Although dating apps are very useful for the communities such as LGBTQ+ and the introverts, realistically dating apps is also have disadvantages in them. The disadvantages of using online dating website and applications are first of all, people can lie with their profile. According to Anderson (2016), there are almost 53% of dating apps users in US lied about their profile and surprisingly, women lied more than men. On most of the dating apps they have strict rules which is only people that are age 18 years old and above can use the apps, but a lot of younger people lied about their age, so they can use it. There is so many news in the past about someone who killed their Tinder date. There are a lot of scams that can lead to murder and robbery. According to Bloodworth (2018), there are a lot of Grindr users are unhappy. The app promotes a highly sexualized and therefore highly image-conscious idea of attraction (Bloodworth, 2018). In past, there are a lot of people that uses Grindr involve in rape and Grindr has also presented as a serious threat to some gay men (Bloodworth, 2018).
Online dating in today’s society
Unlike the old days, people tend to find their romantic partner in a coffee shop, clubs or universities but nowadays, people are more interested in meeting and finding their potential romantic online rather than meeting them face-to-face. People may meet their potential match face-to-face within reason. If they think they are worth their time, they will plan for the next step. To a more serious stage. According to Ferdman (2016), there are about 22% of straight couples met online and there are about 67% of gay couples met online. Meeting people is more efficient for queer, gay and bisexual people because it is much harder to find their potential partner in real life (Ferdman, 2016). In today’s online dating, it is efficient to find potential romantic or sexual partner based on the common interests or common beliefs. There are online dating platforms that are for specific interests. The platforms are including JDate, Christian Mingle, Minder or Muslim Tinder and many more. When people found their potential match, they will make an extra effort to meet with each other in real life. Although, today, online dating is the most common way for heterosexual couples to meet whilst for homoesexuals couples, it is still hard and far away from popular (Emerging Technology, 2017). Online dating has come a long way. It is also interesting because the number of interracial couples has increases since online dating existed (Emerging Technology, 2017). Another interesting fact about online dating today is that the couple that met online have lower rates of marital breakup than those who meet traditionally (Emerging Technology, 2017).
Conclusion
In conclusion, the advancement of Web 2.0 allows people on the Internet to interact with other users and create a special relationship between each other. With the interaction, the users can grow interest communities and create a communication platform where groups of people with similar interests can come together. The number of success in online dating is always increases each year. It is also very clear that dating apps such as Tinder and Grindr has changed the way people seeking for their potential future sexual or romantic partner with the help of advance technology. Even though, there are still a lot of unsuccessful online dating stories and only a few successful online dating stories. Without the advance of Web 2.0 platforms, people are most likely to seek for their potential match in offline community but with advance Web 2.0, instead of looking only at nearby communities, people are now actually can seek for their potential partner from all over the world and people now can find their potential match on various online dating communities based on beliefs, backgrounds and passions, this will increase their romantic network.
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Hi MValine,
I love your choice of topic. Online dating and dating through applications is so current and I personally think it is so interesting too. I really like the way in which you set up your paper, it made it easy to follow along and understand your key points quickly and easily.
As you mentioned in your cons section, there are a number of ways online dating has negatively impacted the dating scene. Something I would consider also going under the cons section if the idea of ‘Liquid Love’. Liquid love is a term used to describe how dating has shifted from courtship to a form of entertainment. People date ‘secure in the knowledge they can always return to the marketplace for another bout of shopping’” (Hobbs, Owen, & Gerber, 2016, p. 272). I was wondering your opinion on if you think online dating has resulted in ‘Liquid Love’ and if you believe this is a negative or positive thing?
Thanks again for the read, it is so crazy how Web 2.0 has really changed so many aspects of everyday life for society. I wrote my paper on Web 2.0’s affect on activism. Feel free to check it out – https://networkconference.netstudies.org/2019Curtin/2019/05/05/web-2-0-effect-on-societys-engagement-with-activism/
Alice
Hi Alice,
Thank you for taking the time to read my paper and giving me a feedback, I really appreciate that.
Dating app is the app that allows users to find their potential partner online. At first the users make a profile filled with their photos, biography and age. The way dating app works, in this case, for example Tinder. The way Tinder is working is when the users see a potential partner they can swipe right of their profile and if they do not like it, they can swipe left.
In my opinion, dating app has resulted in ‘Liquid Love’ because of how dating app works. It is like playing games on your phone. I’d say Liquid Love in a dating app is a negative thing because the people cannot really find their soulmate on the dating app because most people that use the app are only looking for a hook up, not for a serious committal relationship.
I look forward in reading your paper.
Diva
Hi MValine,
Your paper was structured very well and discusses a really interesting topic! Dating applications have been so popular recently, and I think the stories that emerge from friends’ experience using the app are even better than using the app to find a legitimate partner!
I have a few questions for you based on the pros and cons of using dating applications.
1. Do you think that dating through these applications has come to resemble a form of shopping for a partner?
2. Do you think that dating applications empower single women as they have more access to a potential partner and can meet them based on their own preferences, terms and time constraints? For example, a single mother might be able to meet a potential partner during the hours their child is at school.
Looking forward to your reply,
Thank you,
Devyn
You can check out my paper here, if you’d like! It is also looks at how Web 2.0 has changed the way people interact, with a focus on how Web 2.0 has allowed for the development of online communities capable of initiating change:
https://networkconference.netstudies.org/2019Curtin/2019/05/05/active-now-how-web-2-0-allows-for-the-formation-of-online-communities-capable-of-initiating-change-through-activism/
Hi Devyn,
Thank you for taking the time to read my paper and giving me a feedback, I really appreciate that.
In regard to your questions, I think that dating through these applications has come to resemble a form of shopping for a partner. The reason why is because, in dating apps before you meet your potential partner in real life, you can check their profile, and if you like them you can swipe right and if you don’t then you can swipe left. It is the same as when you are buying something on online shopping. You can put your favourite products in your shopping carts and if you change your mind you can remove it from your shopping carts.
Secondly, I do think that dating applications empower single women. First of all, on dating apps allows users to meet with their potential partner based on their own preferences. The good thing about dating apps is that the users can meet with their potential partner whenever they are free. It is convenient for a woman who is busy with their work and even for single mother who is busy with their children. So, all the easy access in dating apps empower women to go out there and find their potential partner.
I look forward in reading your paper.
Cheers,
Diva
Hi MValine
Your title of your paper caught my attention and I’m glad it did. Your paper was well written and outlined every detail letting anyone understand the topic no matter their past knowledge on dating apps.
your paper is very current and it feels like more and more apps are coming out each year to suit a different community of people and to suit different needs. Dating apps are such a new thing and it is very easy to lie when using them. When it comes to an appearance you cant lie in real life but online you are able to because of technology. Would love to hear your thoughts on dating websites vs dating apps as they have a whole other community that uses these websites. Are these websites as helpful as the apps?
looking forward to reading your reply,
Steph
Heres a link to my paper on the gender double standards when it comes to sharing intermit images
https://networkconference.netstudies.org/2019Curtin/2019/05/10/female-students-receive-more-negative-reactions-to-revealing-images-they-post-on-social-media-compared-to-their-fellow-male-students/
Hi SPrice,
Thank you for taking the time reading my paper and giving me a feedback. I really appreciate that.
I’m glad that my paper got your attention and I really appreciate your nice comment. Dating apps is new on the Internet and it is true that you can lie about your dating profile. That is one of the cons of using dating apps.
Regarding to your questions, I think in my opinion, both dating apps and dating websites have two completely different communities. In the newer version of finding potential partner online, dating apps tend to attract younger people more than older people. The users of a dating app are mostly people who are in their 20s and most of them are only looking for a hook up. Whilst for dating websites, the target market for the website version is for the people aged 40 and above, because most of them are looking for a serious relationship, not a hook up. Most single mums and single dads are using dating websites more than dating apps, one of the examples of dating websites that existed today is eHarmony.
I look forward in reading your paper.
Thank you,
Diva.