The article “Managing uncertainty in mobile dating applications: Goals, concerns of use, and information seeking in Grindr” written by Elena Francesca Corriero and Stephanie Tom Tong covers the uncertainty and potential disasters that can come with dating apps and the ability to hide behind your phone screen.
These apps have a verification option to solidify that you are who you say you are, and that situations of uncertainty and disaster can be avoided but the percentage of people verify themselves is not as high as these app makers would like. The developers and creators put effort into preventing horrible situations that can come with the usage of these apps, but their effort can only go as far as the user wants to comprehend with what they are trying to protect.
These types of dating apps are based around people finding sexual activity and hopefully for some, a relationship. The issue with both those potential outcomes is that you must meet in person at some point for either of those possibilities to happen. Some apps force people to provide more information about themselves to make an account, but some like Tinder ask for the bare minimum. For a Tinder account all you need to start swiping is to put in one picture.
I have never been one to use one of these apps, but I have heard all kinds of stories where the outcome is somewhat horrifying. Where people meet in person and the pictures do not match the actual person at all or the person is way older than they described or even the person is the opposite gender than they said they were.
It is a dangerous game being played by so many. A company like Tinder could demand that everyone verifies themselves with identification of some sorts, but they know they would lose so many of their consumers so that would never happen.
These apps are just a crazy trust game that you kind of just have to gamble on. If you plan on using any of these, you must be prepared for any outcome. According to the article, misrepresentation is the most likely outcome when using one of these apps. Most people on these apps are desperate and nothing shows a stronger sign of desperation than creating a fake profile that poorly represents yourself to hopefully pair up with someone.
Also, these apps can have misinformation and misrepresentation, but even worse, sexual assault, kidnapping and rape is also an outcome that this article covered. They discuss these things as possibilities that are not as rare as you would think.
Personally, I think that these apps most often end with bad outcomes.
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