Should you be hooking up during coronavirus pandemic? Tinder, Bumble downloads surge.
Many people looking for love have flocked to dating apps during the coronaviurs pandemic. But is it safe to meet up with the men and women you’re chatting with on Tinder, Bumble, Grindr and other apps?
Usage for the popular apps has grown substantially as people are stuck at home. Tinder has also remained the highest grossing app in the world in March, according to market intelligence company Sensor Tower.
Downloads for the dating apps have also increased since the pandemic began, Sensor Tower data shows.
Randy Nelson, the head of mobile insights for Sensor Tower, said increased usage does not necessarily mean people are defying social distancing measures.
“These apps feature rich chat capabilities to facilitate online dating without real-life meetups, and their growth at this time may simply reflect a desire for singles to combat boredom and find some human connection, even virtual, during isolation,” Nelson told McClatchy News. “This is more possible than ever before with the rise in adoption of video chat apps such as Zoom.”
Plenty of people using the apps to talk to people during the crisis. Bumble is having more “quality chats,” meaning conversations are lasting longer with lengthier messages, according to Time.
Tinder has introduced a new feature that allows its users to match with people throughout the world, as opposed to their immediate area.
Taking it a step further and meeting face to face during the pandemic is not without its risks. But Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House’s infectious disease expert, isn’t totally against the thought “if you’re willing to take a risk.”
“It depends on the level of interaction you want to have,” Fauci told Vanity Fair. “If you’re looking for a friend, sit in a room and put a mask on, and you know, chat a bit...If you want to go a little bit more intimate, well, that’s your choice regarding a risk. The one thing you want to do is make sure the person is feeling well. Even though there’s a lot of asymptomatic infections, that’s one of the things that’s really troublesome.”
Dating app #Open told its users “this isn’t a good time to be swapping spit, the Seattle Times reported. It shares a similar sentiment as Bumble, whose founder and CEO asked its users to date virtually for now.
“Please keep following the advice of local and national health authorities and the Centers for Disease Control, and please don’t meet your Bumble matches in person until further notice,” Whitney Wolfe Herd said.
Some online daters have told CNBC and Time the virtual shift is making things better. Jutin Lehmiller, a research fellow at Kinsey Institute, told MIT Technology Review there could be a “permanent shift” for virtually connecting after the pandemic is over.
Dacher Keltner, a University of California, Berkeley sociologist worries about the long-term impact the pandemic may give single adults.
“Touch is as important a social condition as anything,” Keltner told Time. “It reduces stress. It makes people trust one another. It allows for cooperation. When you look at people in solitary confinement suffering from touch deprivation, you see that people lose a sense that someone’s got their back, that they’re part of a community and connected to others.”
This story was originally published April 17, 2020 at 1:13 PM.