There’s no question that dating has changed significantly in the last 50 years. Gone are the days when people would “go steady,” wear each other’s class pins and rings, and be caught sharing a milkshake at the local diner.
Now, with the popularity of dating apps, late teens and early twenty-year olds are more likely to meet someone online than in person.
This reliance on technology to communicate and meet people has sacrificed the in-person communications we would have had otherwise. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Many people find it much easier to talk to someone over text than in person mainly because it makes us feel safer. Should you be rejected, it wouldn’t be in public, or in person, and you can just delete the conversation and forget it happened. It’s harder to do that in person.
This online communication can date back to the days of AOL and chat rooms when people were just beginning to reach out through the internet. Entrepreneurs took this idea of online communication and applied it to dating sites such as eHarmony and Match.com. These sites were then taken and adjusted into app form (like Tinder) and marketed toward younger generations.
While they’re both online dating platforms, there seems to be a serious gap between the users of eHarmony and Tinder, and that’s their definition of a relationship. Where Match and eHarmony emphasize “long, meaningful relationships,” Tinder is known as being more for hookups. Some warrant this difference to being the user’s age, while others credit it to the fact that members are paying to use Match and eHarmony, where Tinder and other apps are free. Basically, using money as a motivator for actually finding a relationship. Paying for Tinder sounds like it would be borderline illegal. While I think money does act as an incentive, I stand more with those who attribute it to maturity.
For many college students, the word “commitment” can be scarier than locking yourself out of your dorm room. And these apps, Tinder, Grindr, Bumble etc., have made it easier than ever to find someone just to hook up with. Many bios will read “here for a good time not a long time” or “not looking for anything serious,” and that’s if you lucky enough to have them openly admit to it.
While a lot of the boys on these dating apps aren’t looking to date, that’s not to say that they’re all like that. If you’re lucky enough to find someone who might want more than just sex on their twin XL mattress, then that’s great. But the reality of the situation is that those people can be pretty rare.
On the other hand, one could think that most women on the app would say that they’re looking for something more than a hookup. Which creates a weird dichotomy for the users.
So where does that leave us? Honestly, I don’t know. You can’t deny that dating apps have changed the way young adults communicate. Now we’re able to meet and talk with people we would have never met just because of location or lack of then confidence to say “Hi.” But have these apps really made it easier to date? Not really. These apps can make you feel really great and really terrible at the same time, which is kind of ironic. In this sense, using an app can be just like dating in real life. So, other than making it easier to meet people. I don’t think it’s had that much of a positive effect on long-term relationships of young adults.