Round-up: dating app challenges and trends we expect to see in the coming years
Love ‘em or loathe ‘em, dating apps are now an ubiquitous part of our daily lives. Since the early 2010’s, apps such as Tinder, Hinge and Bumble have become singletons’ first port of call when trying to find a romantic partner.
And if you’re a user of any of these aforementioned apps or are merely fascinated by the state of play of this ever-growing industry, continue reading to see how we foresee the trends of online dating going in the future.
Are they effective? What are the challenges?
Whilst this question is to some extent ‘unanswerable’, it’s worth mentioning that despite a pew research paper that surveyed adults asking them about their experiences on dating apps saying that it was ‘mostly positive’, the very concept of meeting someone via pixels on a screen brings with its own unique challenges.
Safety of course is of primary concern due to the inescapable fact that the person on the other end of the phone could be literally anybody.
This disproportionately affects women more than men in this regard and many gruesome tales such as the one linked above tell us that this industry has some way to go to ensuring users of dating apps are completely safe.
From a more societal point of view, research also shows us the detrimental affect smart phone use in general has on our mental health and our ability to interact with our fellow human.
The sad truth is, that unless you want your relationship to be purely virtual, at some point one is going to have to put the phone down and find the best place to meet someone on that very first date.
Lastly, despite their convenience and ease of use, online dating has had a detrimental impact on people looking for love for those very reasons.
Abundance of choice and ease of use means we no longer ‘take a chance’ on meeting a prospective mate because we’re so spoilt for choice we believe something better will soon come along.
Steps need to be taken to help users live more in the moment and be more open to dating different people rather than waiting an eternity for the dream man or woman to come along.
So, what does the future hold?
There’s lots of literature on this topic, but given the main challenges we’ve just outlined in the previous paragraph, here’s a list of features/additions you might see on dating apps in the near future:
· Voice samples - Grazia posits that the sound of one’s voice is the key to whether you find them attractive or not and many apps are already taking this line of thinking and running with it by adding voice elements to their user experience.
· More virtual ‘first dates’ – the option to ‘video chat’ with a match is a pretty standard feature on most dating apps in 2022, but an article by the list predicts this will actually be the preferred MO of daters when choosing ‘where’ to go on a first date.
This has surely been accelerated by the recent covid pandemic and the growing popularity of virtual reality tech may be utilised to help enhance this experience in the future.
· More options for LGBT community – Again, Grazia in the same article notices that many mainstream dating apps are mainly geared towards helping heterosexual people find love and whilst love is ultimately ‘love’, separate apps to appeal to these sub-demographics may improve the experience for a broader range of users who have different needs.
· Increased safety features – Apps such as Tinder now have a ‘panic button’ and for very good reason, further pressure will be placed on developers of dating apps to ensure the user experience is as safe as it can possibly be.
