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

Canceled Era

This year has not been going smoothly ever since it took off from where the previous year left.

There have been numerous calamities, whether caused by man or by multiple forces of nature. As of writing, a lot has changed with the way most inhabitants of this world live since I last posted here.

However, it was not until March when the larger portion of my country started taking things seriously. Among other dilemmas that this year has faced so far, it has been the Coronavirus pandemic that has impacted the countrywide enough that every single thing has been canceled or on lockdown. 

Events and gatherings that would require physical human contact had been canceled. No more concert tours from our favorite artists. No more movie screenings in theaters. Bond 25, No Time To Die, was postponed again at a later date (November 2020). The NBA season was canceled along with other sporting events scheduled in 2020. All forms of entertainment, recreation, and cultural activities were either canceled or postponed to a later date. Even schools and most works were also stopped due to the outbreak. 

We really are now in the "Canceled Era". This is a term that has been surfacing social networking sites referring to people who are being judged and canceled by other people due to their actions, beliefs, culture, among other criteria that social media jurors are looking at. However, the big change here is that in this "Cancelled Era", the one being canceled is the life we used to live. Basically, everything that you had planned to do in 2020 when you were having New Year wishes back in 2019 would have to be postponed to 2021, or by the end of the year if we'd be all lucky and blessed. 

It's said that every single day, at least 17 million people celebrate his or her birthday.  With over a hundred days done for this year, that would have to be a lot of celebrants who had wished for this thing to be stopped and be controlled finally.

If I could, and if it does matter, I would give 10 of my future birthday wishes just to give this Coronavirus a blasting send-off, one that would make it rethink about ever coming back in the next century.

But in reality, well-wishers don't really do much aside from boosting the morale of those who actually do the significant things. These are the frontliners who risk their lives trying to save and help save everyone in whatever way they are willing to do. If not for them, we'd all be just added figures to this virus' death toll. THANK YOU!

In line with that, well-wishers (that's us who are not actually doing frontliner duties) could still helpand actually contribute to the send off the frontliners have been setting up for this virus. 

How?

A famous line I've heard for a number of times goes like this, "If you cannot find a solution, make yourself the solution." But I want to change it up a bit to this: If you cannot be a part of the solution, do not be a part of the problem.

We should try our very best to be not part of the problem that the frontliners have already been facing. The problem has been overwhelming for them to handle and it would not help them one bit if we would still be loitering around, or not doing the safety precautions that trusted health experts have laid out to the general public.

It would be best to stay informed regarding the developments made in the battle against the virus because the battle would never go according to plan if there would be misinformation present.

Stay updated. 
Stay at home. 
Stay healthy and safe!