Dating Apps in the New Age of the COVID-19 Scare

    How do we flirt, engage with, and/or meet and greet new people amid the Covid-19 pandemic? It may not be of top priority in situations like these. However, it's not bad to still look for someone whom you can truly share life stories, and even life itself. After all, we all have our own distinct lifelines.

With more than half of the year being consumed by efforts to contain and ultimately eradicate the Coronavirus scare, most of us are now well-informed about the various effects that the pandemic has brought to our lives. Everything is literally cancelled, not only in Twitter or other social media platforms, but in all aspects. Though there is one thing, among other essentials, that the virus has not cancelled and that is dating, or “online dating” to be more appropriate.

Big-budget movies, concert tours, and public gatherings had been postponed, if not cancelled. For a time, basketball biggest stage was postponed until the NBA Bubble was set. Schools were forced to switch to online learning to limit face-to-face interactions of the teachers and students. These events basically kept the general public in their homes, with massive amount of free time to dive into wherever their unabsorbed minds would take them, since the best way to combat the disease would be via social distancing.

If necessity is the mother of invention, it may be safe to say that boredom and having lots of available time can be father and mother to soul-searching, contemplations, developments, and ultimately, “online dating”.

· Online Dating

Dating applications and sites started surfacing way back 1959 via IBM’s “Happy Families Planning Services” (Wikipedia, 2020). Since then, we have had “Date-Mate”, “Match.com”,   “OkCupid”, and “Scout” among other dating apps and sites that have innovated based on the needs and desires of their eras. These would bring us to the modern day counterparts such as “Bumble”, “Tinder”, “Grindr”, and “Omegle”, among others.

Bumble interface from Bumble.com

    

Dating app “Bumble” recorded a 21% increase in Bumble Video Call usage (Costa, 2020) during the early stages of the Covid-19 quarantine measures. Still from the early stages of the quarantine, from March 12-22, Bumble had a 21% increase in Seattle, 23% increase in New York City, and 26% increase in San Francisco with regard to the tally of sent messages.

Another dating app, “Tinder”, also had an upsurge due to more people staying in their homes. Recorded on March 29 were 3 billion swipes made worldwide for that day alone, the most swipes the app had for a single day (Shaw, 2020).

The busiest hands now belong to only two groups of people: those who are medical researchers and professionals, and those who are swiping left and right, whether day or night, in these dating apps.

It would be not surprising to see more folks switching to online dating as another means of preventive measures due to the elephant in everybody’s room that we cannot afford to risk going out and contract the virus at the expense of the people we share our homes with. It wouldn’t just be worth the risk. Just don’t provide your exact location, or turn any GPS equipment on so you will not have unexpected visitors knocking on your doors with hands infected with Covid-19 droplets.

Additionally, it would not really be far-fetched considering that most of the things we have to do have switched to the Internet, the digital way of doing things. Take for example online streaming services replacing the satellite TV and cinemas, online classes replacing face-to-face classes, online corporate meetings via video-conferencing applications, and online banking.

· The Trouble with Online Dating

Still, online dating still has its own perils. Because romantic relationships shall still be based on both physical and emotional attractions, falling in love with someone you know only via avatar may bring risk. There is a risk of fraud. The Internet is highly vulnerable to fraudulent activities which may eventually lead to security risks. There is the risk of being hacked and exposed to the online community against your will. However, what’s worse is that fraudulent people can actually track down your location due to the access to various GPS equipment that can be manipulated into tricking you to provide information about your location.

· Dating Priorities in this Pandemic Era

The coin always has a flip side as folks would say. Having the privilege to do something at your command also brings with it certain responsibilities. Always be reminded that the use of online dating may either be a permanent adjustment or just an alternative for the physical dating we used to do. It shall still depend on how you think you are doing with dating. If doing things online increases your “datability” (the chance of you being dated by someone you want), then keep on doing the good things inclined with it.

It will always be best to have a clear understanding of what your priorities shall be. With Covid-19 still lurking, to be safe and free from the virus shall still remain at the top. No matter how long your drought has been going!

 

Sources:

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/24/how-singles-are-meeting-up-on-dating-apps-during-the-coronavirus.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52743454

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_online_dating_services