Tinder has skyrocketed in popularity since its inception in 2012. Its trajectory has proven remarkable: within two short years it was registering about one billion ‘swipes’ per day opening up a whole new world of internet assisted casual sex.
Tinder for the uninitiated
After five years in operation Tinders is now valued at over $3 billion, so what is it about Tinder that has made it so incredibly successful?
For the uninitiated, Tinder works by presenting the user with photos of other users to which they are given the opportunity to ‘swipe’. Swiping right means yes, you like them – swiping left means bye bye. If both users swipe right, then the pair are matched and can proceed to chat with each other through the app.
Users can narrow down their preferences based on gender, age and proximity. Recent additions to the app include ‘Tinder location’ where users can adjust their location to a country they are planning to visit, and swipe through potential matches there — obviously so as to waste no time on arrival. Tinder’s worldwide reach is extensive; it is used widely across the globe and is available in about 30 different languages.
Their demographic consists of mostly 18 to 34 year olds, with the older divorcees or long term lotharios preferring to steer clear, and it’s road to app infamy has not been without controversy. In February 2014, security researchers in New York discovered a flaw in Tinder’s code which made it possible to locate users’ precise locations, rather than just number of miles away, constituting a serious breach in user security – not to mention an internet stalker’s paradise. Once brought to light the issue was quickly resolved. However it highlighted the potential dangers of internet dating that arise from putting yourself up on a pedestal and inviting strangers to rate you.
Later that same year Whitney Wolfe, Tinder’s co-founder, filed a sexual harassment and sex discrimination lawsuit against her fellow co-founders, alleging that they had engaged in discrimination and sexual harassment against her. The suit was settled for over $1 million and spurred an international conversation about the treatment of women in tech.
Tinder lowers barriers . . . and inhibitions
And yet despite its security breaches and sexual harassment lawsuits, Tinder still enthrals its 50 million active users. CEO Sean Rad has claimed that this is because Tinder “removes the friction associated with walking up to someone and introducing themselves.” Others have claimed that Tinder operates within a culture of users seeking sex without relationships. In reality, its success is due to a winning concoction of a number of variables — exposure, and being connected with a larger number of like minded individuals than you would get the chance to connect with in the real world. Tinder lowers barriers, and with it, inhibitions.
This increased sexual selection isn’t without its downsides. American health officials in Rhode Island and Utah have seen a rise in STDs and have linked this to the increasing popularity of Tinder and availability of casual sex. Though of course, such a link can never be explicitly proved.
Since Tinder’s ascent to app stardom many lookalike apps have popped up in an attempt to replicate its success – Bumble, Happn, Once, But none so far has found quite the notoriety that Tinder enjoys. Whether Tinder is indeed killing romance remains to be seen, with many users actually meeting serious partners and forging long term relationships from the app. Internet dating is a new and progressing phenomenon and Tinder is simply one permutation of a trend that is set to continue.
City Addictions, April 14, 2017
RELATED CONTENT
My Name Is... And I'm an Alcoholic
Video
A short documentary looking at life the stories of eight alcoholics from their first drink, to their rock bottom, and then to their recovery. Director Mikey Trotter asks ‘what makes alcoholics drink’ and ‘how do you try and get sober.'
Stuart Adams has a long history of addictive behaviour, particularly problem gambling. Now receiving counselling through GamCare he is attempting to turn his life around.
Nina Lakhani, reporting for The Independent, asks how an unchecked culture of legal drug addiction has been allowed to flourish, with two million addicted to tranquillisers, and many thousands abusing over-the-counter painkillers.
This piece from The Independent reveals that as far back as 2000 there was significant cause for concern that alcohol and drug taking in the legal professions was undermining public faith.
Alex Aldridge, a freelance journalist writing in The Guardian, reflects on the implication given by the BBC drama Silk that cocaine use is rife in the legal profession.
Toxicologist Richard Church has a simple warning for young party-goers who may think the club drug 'Molly', an allegedly pure form of MDMA, is safe. "Don't trust your drug dealer," says Dr Church. Molly is not the Molly they thought it was. It is not pure.
Your Brain on Porn - Scary Effects of Porn Addiction
Video
Scientists in the field of neuroscience and brain imaging are showing in study after study that high speed internet porn can change the brain just like drug addiction. This wreaks havoc on the reward/pleasure system in the brain resulting in devastating effects.
Gambling is all around us, whether in casinos and betting shops, or in the growing number of online bingo and roulette websites. What determines who can keep it to the odd flutter, and for whom gambling can get out of control?
Honey, it just doesn't work if it's not on the internet
Video
Patrick Carnes is a best-selling author and a leading proponent of the viewpoint that some sexual behaviour can be seen as an addiction. Indeed it was Carnes who popularised the term 'sex addiction'.
BBC's Weird Nature series shows how Vervet Monkeys in the Caribbean have taken to stealing cocktails from people on the beach. Studies show that they have the same percentage of teetotal and alcoholic individuals as the human population.
There's a tendency in economics to think that financial risk-taking is a purely cognitive activity, but as Dr John Coates explains, it's more quirky than that. Young male city traders on a winning streak shift their risk preferences and take on too much risk.
The reason behind the difference in MDMA’s biological interactivity for men and women is due to women typically having lower body mass indexes, but not adjusting their dosages appropriately to account for this.
This BBC Newsnight report asks if the prescription drug addiction problem sweeping the United States could be replicated in the UK. With interviews with people who have struggled with addiction, and those offering help and support.
Investigating this piece for The Mail on Sunday, Laura Topham discovered how ketamine, previously the preserve of hardcore clubbers, has became hugely popular with Britain's young upper classes.
In this piece from The Guardian one woman speaks candidly about her experiences of blacking out after too much alcohol, and too many times, waking up in a stranger’s bed.
Ketamine has been on the club scene for decades, although only quite recently are its debilitating long-term side effects coming to light. But it's also a life saver in developing countries where it serves as a cheap and available anaesthetic.
The detrimental physical effects of cocaine are well documented, but lesser known is its neurological impact on brain functioning, in areas such as attention span, decision-making and memory.
Researchers in Germany dubbed a certain variant of the CAMK4 gene the ‘cocaine gene' after discovering that cocaine addicts were 25% more likely to carry this variant than non-users.
In this piece form Buzzfeed, Patrick Strudwick investigates the hidden world of "chemsex", following the conviction of Stephen Port for the rape, drugging, and murder of four young men.
Bruce Parry spends time with workers of an illegal cocaine-making factory located deep in the heart of the Amazon jungle. Remarkable footage from BBC documentary Amazon with Bruce Parry.
In making the drug illegal, the government only succeeded in compromising its quality and hiking up its price, making it not only more unaffordable, but more dangerous.
Fry never took cocaine while he was working, on a stage or in a television studio. He would call it, rather creepily, the ‘pudding’ that would give him an extra 'reward' afterwards.
While controversy over its definition – and even its very existence – continues to foment, sex addiction, all too often steeped in shame and guilt, is a very real problem that has a spectacular ability to destroy lives and relationships.
The drug ketamine is mainly used as an anaesthetic, particularly in emergency medicine. But in some countries, it's become popular as a recreational drug. China is one — the authorities there say its use is soaring among young people — while its price continues to drop.
“The NHS is severely impaired in its ability to address new pathologies such as problem gambling, because it is having to spend all its money on drug and alcohol treatment” says psychiatrist Henrietta Bowden-Jones.
Ferris Jabr, reporting for Scientific American, discovers that pathological gamblers and drug addicts share many of the same genetic predispositions for impulsivity and reward seeking.
When asked which drug kills the most users per year what springs to mind? Heroin? Cocaine? Certainly not Paracetamol. But prescription drug abuse is responsible for a significant number of drug related deaths across the globe.
Drugs, alcohol, exercise, sex, pornography, gambling....It seems anything pleasurable can become addictive, but how to draw the line between a harmless hobby and a problem? What elements of treatment are most important in helping tackle addictions?
Professor David Nutt was infamously sacked from his role as Chief Drugs Advisor after publishing a report in the Lancet which challenged the government's policy on drugs, stating that alcohol is in fact more dangerous than heroin.
Reported cases of sex addiction in America are now in the millions. Some estimates suggest 3 to 5% of the American population, including stories of ordinary folk . . . like the Doherty’s from San Antonio
How cracking down on prescription peddling pain clinics created an even more devastating epidemic that remains ongoing and growing to this day: an eruption of widespread heroin addiction
Did cocaine use by bankers cause the financial crisis?
Best Of The Web
Geraint Anderson, renegade stockbroker author of ‘Cityboy’, reflects on former drug tsar David Nutt’s opinion piece suggesting that coked-up bankers were responsible for the credit crunch.
What happens inside the brain of a gambling addict when they make a bet - and can the secret to their addiction be found within the brain itself? BBC Panorama filmed a unique experiment designed to find out.
The pleasure derived from success is borne of the very same brain pathways that make substance use so irresistible to some. Traits that make a good CEO are exactly those that make a ‘good’ addict.
Powder cocaine has a stereotyped reputation as the ‘recreational’ drug of choice for rich high-flyers in pressured jobs, but recreation can quickly become a destructive dependency. What are the reasons for this, and how can problematic use be alleviated with treatment?
Clues from our distant ancestral past suggest that an attraction to alcohol may once have conferred an evolutionary advantage, and explain the the mystery of why we humans are often compelled to consume what is essentially a toxin.
A short documentary looking at life the stories of eight alcoholics from their first drink, to their rock bottom, and then to their recovery. Director Mikey Trotter asks ‘what makes alcoholics drink’ and ‘how do you try and get sober.'
Stuart Adams has a long history of addictive behaviour, particularly problem gambling. Now receiving counselling through GamCare he is attempting to turn his life around.
Nina Lakhani, reporting for The Independent, asks how an unchecked culture of legal drug addiction has been allowed to flourish, with two million addicted to tranquillisers, and many thousands abusing over-the-counter painkillers.
This piece from The Independent reveals that as far back as 2000 there was significant cause for concern that alcohol and drug taking in the legal professions was undermining public faith.
Alex Aldridge, a freelance journalist writing in The Guardian, reflects on the implication given by the BBC drama Silk that cocaine use is rife in the legal profession.
Toxicologist Richard Church has a simple warning for young party-goers who may think the club drug 'Molly', an allegedly pure form of MDMA, is safe. "Don't trust your drug dealer," says Dr Church. Molly is not the Molly they thought it was. It is not pure.
Your Brain on Porn - Scary Effects of Porn Addiction
Video
Scientists in the field of neuroscience and brain imaging are showing in study after study that high speed internet porn can change the brain just like drug addiction. This wreaks havoc on the reward/pleasure system in the brain resulting in devastating effects.
Gambling is all around us, whether in casinos and betting shops, or in the growing number of online bingo and roulette websites. What determines who can keep it to the odd flutter, and for whom gambling can get out of control?
Honey, it just doesn't work if it's not on the internet
Video
Patrick Carnes is a best-selling author and a leading proponent of the viewpoint that some sexual behaviour can be seen as an addiction. Indeed it was Carnes who popularised the term 'sex addiction'.
BBC's Weird Nature series shows how Vervet Monkeys in the Caribbean have taken to stealing cocktails from people on the beach. Studies show that they have the same percentage of teetotal and alcoholic individuals as the human population.
There's a tendency in economics to think that financial risk-taking is a purely cognitive activity, but as Dr John Coates explains, it's more quirky than that. Young male city traders on a winning streak shift their risk preferences and take on too much risk.
The reason behind the difference in MDMA’s biological interactivity for men and women is due to women typically having lower body mass indexes, but not adjusting their dosages appropriately to account for this.
This BBC Newsnight report asks if the prescription drug addiction problem sweeping the United States could be replicated in the UK. With interviews with people who have struggled with addiction, and those offering help and support.
Investigating this piece for The Mail on Sunday, Laura Topham discovered how ketamine, previously the preserve of hardcore clubbers, has became hugely popular with Britain's young upper classes.
In this piece from The Guardian one woman speaks candidly about her experiences of blacking out after too much alcohol, and too many times, waking up in a stranger’s bed.
Ketamine has been on the club scene for decades, although only quite recently are its debilitating long-term side effects coming to light. But it's also a life saver in developing countries where it serves as a cheap and available anaesthetic.
The detrimental physical effects of cocaine are well documented, but lesser known is its neurological impact on brain functioning, in areas such as attention span, decision-making and memory.
Researchers in Germany dubbed a certain variant of the CAMK4 gene the ‘cocaine gene' after discovering that cocaine addicts were 25% more likely to carry this variant than non-users.
In this piece form Buzzfeed, Patrick Strudwick investigates the hidden world of "chemsex", following the conviction of Stephen Port for the rape, drugging, and murder of four young men.
Bruce Parry spends time with workers of an illegal cocaine-making factory located deep in the heart of the Amazon jungle. Remarkable footage from BBC documentary Amazon with Bruce Parry.
In making the drug illegal, the government only succeeded in compromising its quality and hiking up its price, making it not only more unaffordable, but more dangerous.
Fry never took cocaine while he was working, on a stage or in a television studio. He would call it, rather creepily, the ‘pudding’ that would give him an extra 'reward' afterwards.
While controversy over its definition – and even its very existence – continues to foment, sex addiction, all too often steeped in shame and guilt, is a very real problem that has a spectacular ability to destroy lives and relationships.
The drug ketamine is mainly used as an anaesthetic, particularly in emergency medicine. But in some countries, it's become popular as a recreational drug. China is one — the authorities there say its use is soaring among young people — while its price continues to drop.
“The NHS is severely impaired in its ability to address new pathologies such as problem gambling, because it is having to spend all its money on drug and alcohol treatment” says psychiatrist Henrietta Bowden-Jones.
Ferris Jabr, reporting for Scientific American, discovers that pathological gamblers and drug addicts share many of the same genetic predispositions for impulsivity and reward seeking.
When asked which drug kills the most users per year what springs to mind? Heroin? Cocaine? Certainly not Paracetamol. But prescription drug abuse is responsible for a significant number of drug related deaths across the globe.
Drugs, alcohol, exercise, sex, pornography, gambling....It seems anything pleasurable can become addictive, but how to draw the line between a harmless hobby and a problem? What elements of treatment are most important in helping tackle addictions?
Professor David Nutt was infamously sacked from his role as Chief Drugs Advisor after publishing a report in the Lancet which challenged the government's policy on drugs, stating that alcohol is in fact more dangerous than heroin.
Reported cases of sex addiction in America are now in the millions. Some estimates suggest 3 to 5% of the American population, including stories of ordinary folk . . . like the Doherty’s from San Antonio
How cracking down on prescription peddling pain clinics created an even more devastating epidemic that remains ongoing and growing to this day: an eruption of widespread heroin addiction
Did cocaine use by bankers cause the financial crisis?
Best Of The Web
Geraint Anderson, renegade stockbroker author of ‘Cityboy’, reflects on former drug tsar David Nutt’s opinion piece suggesting that coked-up bankers were responsible for the credit crunch.
What happens inside the brain of a gambling addict when they make a bet - and can the secret to their addiction be found within the brain itself? BBC Panorama filmed a unique experiment designed to find out.
The pleasure derived from success is borne of the very same brain pathways that make substance use so irresistible to some. Traits that make a good CEO are exactly those that make a ‘good’ addict.
Powder cocaine has a stereotyped reputation as the ‘recreational’ drug of choice for rich high-flyers in pressured jobs, but recreation can quickly become a destructive dependency. What are the reasons for this, and how can problematic use be alleviated with treatment?
Clues from our distant ancestral past suggest that an attraction to alcohol may once have conferred an evolutionary advantage, and explain the the mystery of why we humans are often compelled to consume what is essentially a toxin.
