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Since times immemorial, things have come and gone. Species were wiped off the face of the earth and empires were built.Generations came and generations left. But if there is one thing that has remained constant throughout all these generations, it is the desire for a person to fall in love.
Dating applications are the new in-thing and are eclipsing their ‘shady’ and ‘way too anonymous’ predecessors-the dating websites. While many argue that this would spell doom for privacy, others are rejoicing in the more open dating system
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Since times immemorial, things have come and gone. Species were wiped off the face of the earth and empires were built.Generations came and generations left. But if there is one thing that has remained constant throughout all these generations, it is the desire for a person to fall in love.
Be it the eternal love story of Saleem and Anarkali or Shakespeare’s classic Romeo and Juliet, love has travelled through all and every medium. Based on that, it would be fair to say that the desire to meet someone suitable and then eventually fall in love are the only two things that remain constant. Take that, whoever said change is the only constant.
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Although the medium of meeting the person you want to fall in love with has changed over the years. While all the Flintstones had to do was smack their woman on the head and drag her home, things have slightly improved over a million years. Readers of a certain generation would relate to the medium popularly known as ‘pen friends’. But that’s long gone. Internet brought in a lot of things like chatrooms, dating websites and even video dating over the internet.But even that phase seems to have been gone, for a while now. And as the generation of smart phones rises, we stand amidst the latest migration in the dating industry, Tinder.
With over 14 lakh users on Android alone and a similar number on both IoS and Windows Phone, the application is now the world’s newest solution to getting people on a date. Unlike the older system of web dating, Tinder offers users to link their social dating profiles to their Facebook and Instragram offering people a complete picture of what is happening.
The process of matching too is beyond algorithms and uses your Facebook profile to match common interests and friends and then offers every user a range of options on the home screen. IF both parties swipe right (accept), then a match is created and they can start chatting.
The application’s trend, which picked up roughly a year back in India, is entering its prime right now and many feel that this is a great platform. “The thing with Tinder is it is more open when compared to those old websites which were in use at least a couple of years back. The problem with those websites was that they offered a lot of anonymity to the users and hence becoming very shady places.Forget soulmates, it was even difficult to find people to become friends with. The anonymity gave them the cover to go all out and say sleazy things,” rues Rasvin Sawhney, a communication professional.
However, she adds that the current trend is much better, thanks to Tinder and related applications. “The thing with these applications is that they are a lot more open and the system of getting contacts is good. We can avoid the people we think are creepy without even contacting them thanks to the profiling,” she adds.
But it isn’t just her. Many people have tried the application and have found it to be helpful. In fact, Sharat Chandra, an employee with Amazon believes that he has found a perfect match on Tinder. “It is funny that the girl I am dating now was once just a right swipe on Tinder. We started speaking right away and now we are going out.
So, I really cannot complain,” he adds with a broad smile. But isn’t all good. There seems to be a downside to the entire process as well. “In most cases, the application makes sure that you get mutual contacts for matches. Sometimes, however, it ends up sending you profiles of people whom you know personally or those who are in the same friend circle as you.
Since your Facebook and Instagram accounts are there, it becomes really embarrassing for us to face them the next time,” says Jatin Raj, a student. He also goes on to explain one of the incidents that ended up putting in a spot. “The other day my cousin walked up to me saying that she found me on Tinder. Although we claim to be an open society, dating really isn’t completely accepted.
Luckily for me, I told her that it was my friends who downloaded that application for fun and I escaped,” he adds with a wink.If experts are to be believed, the downsides of this mobile phone based dating applications go much beyond just social acceptance and embarrassing situations.
According to Rajini (name changed), an employ with a private dating website, the content on the application largely is not moderated. “The thing with dating websites is that every time we have someone join the network, they have to undergo a certain process of moderation before they can start interacting with others on the network.
Though this doesn’t stop people from lying about what they do or how they look to their counterparts, this ensures that no matter what, any sort of nudity or pornography isn’t promoted on the website,” Rajini adds. She also goes on to say that the anonymity is more of a boon than people accept it to be.
“The thing with these dating websites is that even if things get pretty extreme, no one knows exactly who you are till you decide to take things to email, letters or Facebook, which is a good thing. So that even if things go wrong, the personal life of a user is out of it. Unlike Tinder, the websites do not allow people access to their social media giving them more protection,” she says.
Another problem that can potentially arise in this application-based dating is the number of fake accounts on Facebook. Recent surveys have found that Facebook has over 9 lakh verified fake accounts in India alone. Considering the fact that only a Facebook account is needed to join Tinder, this opens up users to a lot of potential trouble.
Additionally, instances in the past have shown that there is hardly any moderation on dating applications apart from Tinder as well. But all these do not seem to bother the users. “What is the point of a dating application if there is no direct contact? If everyone remains anonymous, then how is someone expected to get in to a relationship? Or just become friends for that matter?” questions P Jayanth.
“Although it does have its ups and downs, and there are many risks, it come across as a much better alternative to what we had a few years ago – dating websites. And for all the potential risks this has, it is more authentic and less shady, which is all we need,” he adds.
As we debate the topic, more and more people are either downloading the application, or logging into their favourite dating website in the hunt of a soulmate. Whether you like to swipe right/left to choose your partner, or you prefer doing it on a website that brings strangers together, one thing is for sure.
The face of dating has completely transformed into an internet based phenomenon. And the way things currently stand; this is not going anywhere, unless the government decides to ban these sites and applications too like certain ‘hubs’ and ‘tubes’ that were banned recently. And if you are a marriage broker reading this, you should be worried!
By:Bhavneet Singh
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