Dating apps such as Tinder, Grindr and OKCupid have revolutionized the way people meet and form relationships. | Justin Tijerina/The Cougar
Dating apps such as Tinder and Grinder may help you hook up with someone, but don’t trust them to help you find your future husband or wife.
Dubbed “The Tinder effect” by The Guardian, hooking up with someone under the pretext of sex isn’t the way to go about looking for a long-lasting relationship.
Taken at face value, the way a person looks on the Internet is probably more appealing than they are in real life.
“Tinder is an extension of mainstream real-world dating habits, especially compared to traditional online dating sites,” University College London business psychology professor Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic wrote for The Guardian.
“Well, it turns out that people are a lot more superficial than psychologists thought. They would rather judge 50 pictures in two minutes than spend 50 minutes assessing one potential partner.”
The Technological Factor
According to the Pew Research Center, 38 percent of singles in the United States have used online dating sites, such as Match.com and eHarmony, or mobile apps.
Eleven percent of all Internet users have used dating sites and apps in order to find potential dates, with 7 percent of all cellphone users using them.
Online dating also delays interacting with potential partners in real life.
The Huffington Post reported that relationships usually start to have a solid foundation after five dates, and that online dating causes “fears and motives surrounding online dating (stemming) from personal experience; for example, experienced daters may intuitively know to rule out a bad fit right away, while experienced, jaded daters may want to ‘drag out the dream a little longer.'”
Dating apps have revolutionized the way that people meet — whether it is for sex or for a long-lasting relationship. Tinder and Grindr subscribers are growing exponentially, and with the apps using slogans such as Grindr’s “quick, convenient and discreet,” there’s no telling where any potential hook-ups may go.
