In recent years, online dating has become increasingly popular, creating a new demand in the dating world where one must catch eyes merely based off of a few pictures and a brief biographical description. While this may sound impersonal to some, people have flocked to such sites in hopes of finding a match. According to a Pew Research Center survey, this is especially true for college-aged students where participation has nearly tripled since 2013, going from 10 percent then to 27 percent now. Additionally, roughly one-in-five people between the ages 18 and 24 self-report using dating apps on their cellphones, showing a substantial increase from 2013 where only 5 percent reported using such apps. However, this clear increase in the usage of dating apps has had detrimental consequences through devolving millennial dating into a hookup-only scene.
A popular example of one of these damaging apps is Tinder, a location-based dating site that allows users to swipe right or left on other members to meet possible matches. With its own social media profiles, blog posts, dating app and the original dating site, Tinder has only boomed since its conception. It has since taken over the world of online dating, an unfortunate matter for millennials. Thus, college-aged users are subject to increased levels of objectifying people based on their looks and eligibility to hook up or not, and they have in turn developed an unhealthy way of viewing sexual relationships.
As a result of this devastating increase in online dating, specifically through the usage of apps such as Tinder, a new, destructive take on dating has begun. It is what modern psychologists now refer to as the Tinder Effect, the idea that hookups are the new romance and they can be easily achieved through the click of a button or a swipe on a screen. Thus, Tinder users are often in search of one thing and one thing only: sex. Whether it is through casual sexting to achieve a boost in confidence or through meeting for drinks and a hookup, Tinder has unfortunately allowed one-night-stand culture to become that much easier on college campuses.
Both male and female users have begun using Tinder as a way to skip the awkward introductions and get to business, turning hookups into something that closely resembles online shopping. Students are able to pull out their phones, choose their favorite users and have sex available at their fingertips not long after. While this has no doubt made finding sexual partners much easier for college students, it has simultaneously undermined the traditional stability of long-term dating for these students by normalizing one-night-stand culture. Thus, it has had a detrimental impact on the willingness of students to even participate in relationships outside of the existing hookup culture in college.
In fact, “catching feelings” and having “strings attached” are two terms that have both gained negative connotations among the majority of the college aged population, where “hanging out” often means hooking up. For example, one in three college students have only been on two or fewer dates in their four years of undergraduate school, and yet, an astounding 72 percent of college students have experienced at least one one-night stand. This shows the prevalence of hookup culture on college campuses, which has only been amplified through the usage of apps such as Tinder. According to a study conducted by Leah LeFebvre, who specializes in dating trends and mating strategies, only 22 percent of people who met their Tinder matches report not hooking up. Additionally, the average number of Tinder driven hookups reported by users was three. Thus, Tinder has been widely successful in allowing college students to meet a larger number of sexual partners much more easily, but this comes at the cost of the traditional dinner-and-a-movie-dating.
With this recent spike in sexual interest on online dating sites, one is forced to face the reality of millennial dating — it has been downgraded in the worst ways possible. For most college students, traditional dating has been thrown out of the window and instead replaced with unstable, emotionally disconnected one-night stands, or if someone is lucky, a consistent “no strings attached” hookup. Thus, the stereotypical one-night-stand life of college has an all new way to thrive, and it is at the hands of apps such as Tinder that degrade people to their looks and willingness to hookup. So while these apps can be deemed a success for those searching for easy, casual sex, it is a detrimental loss for the world of traditional dating and for the millennial population as a whole. If using apps such as Tinder come with the cost of real relationships, connections and dates, then it just isn’t worth it.
Hailey Yowell is a Viewpoint Writer for The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at opinion@cavalierdaily.com
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