A couple meets at a laundromat back in the 80s, as both are waiting on their loads of laundry to finish, they strike up a conversation. Twenty years later, they have three children and are happily married. I don’t need to go to laundromats anymore because this app that I recently downloaded offers pick up and drop off services. With a simple tap I can have someone do all the work for me. Same goes for grocery shopping, dog walking, and all the daily tasks we once had to go out of our way to do.
Our lives, thanks to apps, are much simpler now. But when it comes to day to day interactions, are these new technologies ruining our chances at meeting our potential soul mate? The phenomenon of a “simplified” life has also made its way into the dating world. Apps like Tinder and Bumble allow for people to connect simply by “swiping right.” Users are presented with potential partners’ profile and can decide to take it (by swiping right) or leave it (by swiping left). If both users swipe right, a “connection” is made and both users are redirected to a chat section. Much has been said about the superficiality of dating apps. They connect humans strictly on the basis of their looks and offer an infinite number of “options”, propagating notions of “hookup culture” that is – meaningless sex.
That said, apps like Hinge market themselves as “relationship apps.” Users cannot simply upload pictures onto their profiles, they must answer a few questions that say more about “who they are as a person.” According to Justin McLeod, founder and CEO of Hinge, the goal was to “create a younger and cooler version of match.com or eHarmony but less superficial than tinder.” In other words, an App was created for what was missing in another App – depth. But maybe romance is the one thing that technology will not be able to tame. After all, is it a coincidence when you combine Tinder and Hinge together you get “hinder?”