Tinder, a mobile dating application, saw a 700 percent increase in use this January, gaining particular popularity among college students, due to its quick and easy process of matching individuals.
The free app from the Apple store, allows users in the same geographical area to chat with each other only if both parties have “liked” each other via the app. The program uses Facebook to pull profile pictures and provide information about mutual friends and shared interests.
On Valentine’s Day, Ithaca College student Zach Wilkens downloaded Tinder on his iPad, in hopes of finding true love.
While online dating is far from a new concept for college students, “discovery” apps like Tinder provide a way for them to find love, hook up or at the very least talk to someone new with less awkwardness than traditional online dating. Seventeen million active users use dating applications like OK Cupid and Tinder for a combined 2.1 billion sessions in the last month alone.
This isn’t the first time that Wilkens has turned to the Internet when looking for love. Although he lives in the college town of Ithaca, NY, which is home to more than 25,000 students, he has had little luck finding love through conventional dating. Previously, he had an OK Cupid account, where he had a few interactions but no in-person meet-ups.
“I am open to things like Tinder; I’ll try it,” Wilkens said. “But I do not know if I have very high expectations for finding anyone. But I’ll try it. My heart is preemptively a-flutter.”
Two and a half miles away, Cornell University student Lauren Ritter also checked her Tinder app on Valentine’s night, flipping through the 40 plus matches that she is currently chatting with. Unlike Wilkens, whose objective for joining Tinder was the promise of a relationship, Ritter is using Tinder for casual fun.
“It’s a new way to waste time; I check it probably once a day,” Ritter said. “It’s part of my routine when I’m getting ready to go to sleep. I check all my social media and now I get on Tinder and see if anyone has messaged me or matched up with me.”
Matt Brashears, a Cornell sociology professor who focuses on gender and social network analysis, credits the appeal of Tinder to its ability to link individuals who would otherwise never meet.
“Since we get most of our friends from the places where we live and work, this imposes an inherent limit on the set of people we’re likely to encounter,” said Brashears. “Dating sites provide a focus for association that is independent of our existing associates and therefore let us transcend those networks.”
Tinder, which was introduced in September 2012, has become a hot commodity in 2013 especially for college-age adults, earning a spot on the top selling apps for the Apple store. Director of Ithaca College’s Emerging Media major, Devan Rosen, attributes this rapid growth in popularity to its easy use and integration of networking.
“The core functionality of context aware computing and social integration [of Tinder] is most certainly here to stay and it is the foundation of the killer app,” Rosen said.
Part of its popularity can be traced to the relative privacy that it provides. Unlike other dating apps, with Tinder, users will only be matched and then granted chat access to other users if they have both mutually liked each other. There is no way to know if another user has rejected a profile. The mutual friends, common interests and Facebook credibility of Tinder also provide an element of comfort to the notorious world of online dating.
The increased popularity of Tinder stems from its portability and convenience, according to Rebecca Plante, a sociology professor at Ithaca College whose research focuses on gender and sexuality, but specifically on “hook-up” culture.
“Tinder may appeal to users because it seems to make meeting and hooking up utterly effortless,” Plante said. “There is no profile-writing, as in online dating, there seems to be no self-promotion involved, and it appears to make finding a partner as easy as simply paging through photographs and liking someone’s looks.”
However, the expediency that Tinder offers, which “(shortcuts) the selection process” does have trade-offs, said Plante.
“Tinder is part of a trend that seems to privilege apparently rational efficiency over everything else – it’s like the ‘McDonaldization’ of attraction,” she said. “This makes sense in some respects but real-time relationships often include rejection, uncertainty, risk, drama, and trial-and-error. How can we learn about these things if we keep asking technology to buffer for us?”
Despite Plante’s concerns, Tinder boasts approximately 100,000 daily active users, including Wilkens, who feels the selection process is merely a matter of effort and sincerity.
“I feel like I can be genuine both online and in person, but it’s a concern of mine that people won’t be genuine online,” Wilkens said. “She’s one mile away and she was active four miles ago. I guess I’ll hit the heart button,” he said, voice trailing as he dives headfirst into the Tinder dating app.
In one hour, after the simple touch of a button, he has a match. She’s a student at Cornell, who likes the New York Yankees, and yet another example of why, due to such ease and accessibility, Tinder has become so quickly popular.
