Tinder, a mirror on changing sexual tendencies
Tinder says it is to prevent under-18s from using the dating app, a change it says will affect less than three percent of its user base; a claim that nobody who knows anybody in that age group believes for an instant. Since it was launched in September 2012, Tinder allowed over-13s to uses the service, restricting matches to others in the same age range.
We now live in an age where a significant section of society is more open than ever about sex, with a view of relationships bordering on the utilitarian. Tinder makes finding a sex partner easy: users simply move a photograph of a candidate to the right or left to indicate whether they like them and then to hook up with somebody who also thinks you’re attractive or interesting looking. That said, there are people who also use Tinder in the hope of meeting somebody they can establish a longer term relationship with: not everybody wants to move from match to mattress in one step.
Some Tinder users, particularly US male teenagers, simply swipe everybody to the right until they reach their daily limit, not bothering even to look at the profiles, in the hope of increasing the possibility of a match, pretty much hoping the law of averages will kick in, a practice that has produced some interesting experiments.
Sometimes in class I use Tinder in my senior management courses at IE Business School to scandalize and encourage participation among older students who probably haven’t even heard of it. The responses are usually very revealing, showing how different generations think and feel about sex.
The restrictions on under-18s is part of a series of changes the company, owned by IAC has introduced recently. In April, one of the buttons that appears on the screen when there is a match changed from reading Keep playing to the more neutral, Keep swiping, an attempt, say some observers, to “dignify” the search for a relationship; other users were unhappy that the “gaming mentality” was over.
What’s behind the changes? Trying to impose age restrictions is pretty much a waste of time. Teenagers who have tried Tinder and like it will simply open a new profile and lie about their age, which might well make the problem worse in that it could lead to matches with people who are significantly older, with the concomitant legal risks. At the same time, as always happens when things are banned: in this case, some teenagers will be attracted because they see it as a “adults only” app, again, with a number of associated dangers. Quite simply, nobody knows what the outcome of this decision to ban under-18s will be.
In short, a simple app like Tinder turns a mirror on the changes in how different generations perceive sex.
(En español, aquí)
