Dating Apps..A Necessary Evil?

 

Tinder, Bumble, Match, to mention but a few. All these applications (Apps) and a thousand more have one thing in common; dating. They are platforms meant for single people to meet other singles to chat with, go on dates with and possibly get into a relationship with. Some marriages are as result of these dating apps. Each app is specifically customized to meet specific preferences. According to Pew Research Center, online dating is especially popular among certain groups - particularly among young adults and those who identify as Lesbian, gay, and bisexual.

Have you ever wondered why there are so many of these dating apps? Just take a moment to think about how our parents and their parents managed to find each other without the aide of these platforms. What has changed now? Well, it would seem that dating apps make it somewhat easy for people to find others that they find physically attractive and share common interests with. Other positive attributes include the ease and efficiency of using these platforms to search for dates, as well as the platforms' ability to expand user search options beyond social circles. 

There is, however, a down side to all this swiping left and right, super liking, tapping, and so on - of course this is to be expected. Negative traits of dating platforms range from scams and harassment to others believing that these apps have paved a way to shallow relationships rather than deep ones. There is also the 'Catfish' issue - this is where a person creates a fake identity aimed at lying to someone to appear more desirable. Many users have had experiences where someone sends unsolicited explicit messages and images.

You can love, hate or may use them or not, one thing is clear, dating platforms have defied the concept of time and distance and will be around for a very long time.