<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dating has become so much easier these days, especially since we are not bound to our computers in order to meet people online. It is so much easier to see who potential matches are, at any place and time, with the convenience of a cell phone in the form of dating apps. These include OkCupid, which integrates Instagram and personality quizzes, Hinge, which provides mutual FaceBook friends, Hitch (an app that allows friends to match up other friends) and Grindr (for gay and bisexual men to meet). However, this convenience is not necessarily a better way to form relationships. Tinder is an app that is used to find friends, potential dates, potential romances, and more. Based on the user's location, Tinder is connected with FaceBook to find matches. The user can view a few images of a person, as well as a small profile. They can swipe left or right, which can deny or allow someone, respectively, to message the user within the app. When someone you chose swipes right on your profile, it is considered a “match”, and you are able to send messages to each other. There are 1.4 billion swipers per day and 26 million matches per day according to Tinder’s website (Kissick).</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">People used to have to speak to each other in person in order to start a relationship. Tinder is creating a culture where people do not need to interact in person. Although Tinder was created as a way for people to be able to interact more easily, it really is just creating a culture where it is more difficult to meet people. People no longer need to go experience the possibility of rejection when speaking to someone in person. Tiner eliminates that. If people are talking less to each other now at bars and coffee shops, people will stop trying to interact with each other all together. Society will decide that it is easier just to shop for a new mate through the phone. I mean, it is easier. You no longer have to actually speak to someone to know if their interests align with yours, or if they are attracted to you. These are all things you can see through profile pictures and personality descriptions. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The whole idea of whether Tinder is affecting dating negatively or positively depends on a person’s perspective. Often, as mentioned before, people go on Tinder for an easy hook-up which is a person’s personal preference. As said in </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Vanity Fair’s</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;"> research article, a girl who uses this application confirms, “There is no dating. There’s no relationships, they’re rare. You can have a fling that could last like seven, eight months and you could never actually call someone your ‘boyfriend.’ [Hooking up] is a lot easier. No one gets hurt—well, not on the surface.”(</span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Nancy Jo Sale Vanity Fair May 2000) </span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">That being said, it is ironic. The purpose of the app is to find people and form relationships. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">On a wider scale, Tinder does seem to damage the magical moments that people once used to have when meeting their supposed life partners. “I was at this park reading a book when I saw her and our eyes connected” is slowly replaced by “I was on Tinder and she was the only girl who was showing the most skin so I automatically assumed she’s desperate and swiped right on her.” Sure things like this do happen with real life dating, but the application itself promotes this type of interaction more than an encounter face to face would. As said in the article written by vanity fair “It’s body first, personality second, Honestly, I feel like the body doesn’t even matter to them as long as you’re willing,It’s that bad.” (</span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Nancy Jo Sale Vanity Fair May 2000)</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;"> For the people who have indeed met on Tinder, supposedly most of them are actually embarrassed to confess to their friends and acquaintances that they did meet on Tinder and instead, create a false back story about their first meeting. This clearly comes to show that no matter how people defend their use of these dating apps, they do feel a sense of insecurity about coming out to people about it. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This way of dating will completely take over our culture in the future. This advancement is just being lazy more than choosing convenience. Now that going out and meeting somebody to create a relationship with, is the “old” way of doing things, the future will only increasingly display more and more laziness. People use tinder to find other people, from the comfort of their home, from the comfort of a screen like we would look for a new pair of shoes on Amazon. Making dating, a new form of online shopping dehumanizes our generation, making the person look more at the surface rather than the depth of a human being. For example, asking “how tall are you” is a common question when talking on the tinder app. This only leaves our society to become more and more dependent on these antisocial comforts. Even in a social situation such as dating, the person does not get to know the other person face to face first.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">There is also the possibility of dating apps forcing skeptics to conform to new ways. Some people are against using the apps and internet sites to meet people and chose not to use it. If the future forces the majority if dating to a digital format, then people are less likely to socialize outside of the comfort of a screen. People who do not use the apps will be at a disadvantage and forced to find their way through a digital meeting world that has deleted the relevance of the one that they used to know. The majority of people might be switching to online dating which would make it increasingly more difficult to meet in person. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">To solve this we think it would be better to stop using this app as a way to promote hook up culture, and instead let it bring us back to what it was made for: finding someone online who you are compatible with and then meeting them for a date in person. Or, even better, in a perfect world, stop using this application all together and go out to meet people the old fashioned way. Interact, meet people through other people and experience life through your own eyes instead of through the screen of your phone. this is not the kind of society we want to be headed towards. If you want to help us stop this “Tinderpocalipse”, all it takes is a signature and a voice to raise awareness of the situation at hand. </span></p>
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