4.1 Introduction
Technological advances in mobile communication devices and breakthrough in dating apps, virtual communities have emerged, characterized by increased socialization in a virtual society. Dating in contemporary societies is only a swipe away. Studies indicate that at least 1 in 10 Americans use online dating services (Alhabash, Hales, Baek & Oh, 2014). Among those using online dating services, the largest percentage is young adults whose age range from 18 to 24 years (Couch, Liamputtong & Pitts, 2012). Multiple studies have been conducted majoring on techno-sexual revolution, and identifying prospective tenets defining successful intimate relationships (Perrin et al., 2011; Quiroz, 2013). On the other hand, considering the newness of this social convention, little research has been conducted to evaluate the perception of young people on how mobile technology mediates intimate relationships and socialization in modern-day societies. This study seeks to understand the implications of modernity in the development of long-term personal relations by elucidating how young people mediate technology within their intimate spheres of life. In order to meet this aim, the researcher developed a qualitative study is designed to explain how attributes of ‘modernity’ influence the way in which people view and facilitate development of intimate relationships, and the extent to which use and popularity of dating apps detail the attrition of traditional attitudes towards intimate relationships, focusing on whether people construe ‘family unit’ as the ‘goal’ or consider relationships as ephemeral. Lastly, the study explains the long-term structural consequences of ephemeral relationships by considering dating as the beginning of the ‘family unit’ that traditionally espoused the foundations of society. Data were collected through interviews and was subjected to thematic analysis qualitatively. Using an interpretivist approach, the researcher deductively developed three themes, including blurred sexual boundaries, self-representation, and hyper-communication.
4.2 Themes
4.2.1 Blurring of Sexual Boundaries
Digital technology, particularly with advances in smart mobile devices, has revolutionized different aspects of everyday life in the society, including the way people communicate and develop relationships, intimacy, and love (Barraket & Henry-Waring, 2008). This study has exhibited many advantages and limitations of using dating applications to actuate relationships. The advantages enthuse more people, particularly young adults to engage in online dating with studies showing that as of 2011, 10% of young adults use dating apps, with more whites (11%) than blacks (8%) using these mobile dating platforms (Perrin et al., 2011). Ellison, Heino, and Gibbs (2006) assert that online dating is redefining the dynamicity of how people conduct their relationships with people not only placing mobile communication devices at the center of their work, shopping, and daily lives, they are using them to manage the personal aspects of their lives and relationships. With modernity, people reinvent their sexuality in virtual communities, which has blurred sexual boundaries in society.
The key intent of developing intimate relationships was a culmination to a family unit. In the past, the norm was marriage following steady intimacy and growth of love with people anticipating children and lifelong companionship. Moreover, the family unit was considered a monogamous entity based on the religious perspectives of Christianity (Almog & Kaplan, 2015). In today’s world, people using dating applications for fun without the anticipation of getting other perfect matches from online socialization. In a conference presentation by Fiore and Donath (2004) on the online person, it was deduced that there are more divorces in the society, which are legal, presenting daters to polygamy following successful development of intimate relations with others. On the outset, the dating applications are designed to assist people to select potential mates relative to minimal visual data, as opposed to conventional connecting through communication. As a result, limited information leads dating app users to make relationship judgments with biased information, which potentiates long-term effects on individual intimate attachments. In the long-run, Albury, K., Burgess, J., Light, Race and Wilken (2017) identify the emergence of cultural and social consequences surrounding the family unit, which are exhibited by increasing rate of divorces and failing relationships.
The study, further, established that communication technologies have increased the availability of pornographic materials. Dating applications make their spread easier with many people cross-sending naked photos and videos to their daters. Albury and Byron (2014) describe society as having become more pornographic with porn materials being normalized as a social construct. In another study, Albury and Byron (2016) highlight the miniature understanding of online dating, with many young people sexualizing pornography, including the engagement in sex talks over IM chats. Previously, people tended to engage in sex chats using the internet relay chats, while it has become a norm to exchange videos. While sex chats and exchange of naked photos and videos have no negative effects on sexual satisfaction and orientation on women, Henry, Powell, and Flynn (2017) purport that it may lead to sexual dissatisfaction in men thus deteriorating their intimate relations. Indiscriminately, increased sharing of porn materials and pornography is shaping the reality of sexual expectations, with a resultant frustration and disappointment.
Dating applications present to an individual a multitude of potential partners to select. On signup, an individual is open to matches that are congruent to the preferences they highlight in the application. Online dating has transformed the hook-up culture into a more liberal alternative. Nakamura (2002) argue that people are subjected to increased sexual freedom such that they are at the liberty of choosing for themselves with respect to their sexual orientation without judgmental connotations present in the real world. Orbuch and Fine (2003), on the other hand, anchor the position that dating applications command the requirement to develop relationships between consenting adults to filter minors from adult content. As a result, people engaged in online dating establish intimacy with other consenting partners, which enhance sexual satisfaction considering their needs, orientation, and availability.
In addition to increased sexual freedom, the study established that engaging in online dating using dating applications makes dating process easier. Following the live launch of Tinder, a mobile dating application, 50 million people are using the application, of which 53% are young adults aged between 18 and 24 years (Schacter, 2015). With the growing number of online daters, issues unique to this form of the relationship development method have developed, particularly the changes in dating culture among the youths, and their perception towards intimate relations. While Quiroz (2013) pointer to increased instability of social institutions that have given rise to relationship individualism, Bauman (2013) argue that people are consumers of experiences in the societies of modernity defining interconnectedness of the contemporary world as the cause of individualism, which shapes the worldview of people and other entities. In this regard, dating apps and computer dating are regarded to symbolize liquefied love (Bauman, 2013). Based on these assumptions, dating applications, such as Tinder, presents more content for people to evaluate the sexual lives of their partners to espouse safety and increased satisfaction with the people one dates (Blackwell, Birnholtz & Abbott, 2015). Some people exploit dating applications to acquire sexual satisfaction. In this regard, an individual may seek a hook-up with another for a one-time sexual satisfaction without any intent of subsequent meetings. Henry-Waring et al. (2008) have identified such form of relations as a predisposition to danger in the consideration of meeting strangers. Although prone to relative danger, some studies consider dating applications a sexual liberation in the event online dating is accomplished responsibly.
One of the interview respondents considered dating applications to negatively depict men as sexists who only date online for sexual satisfaction alone without a consideration of long-term relations. Some people are sexually driven when they seek intimacy Tinder and seek dating services when pressured into a sexual drive (Doutre 2014). Sexual boundary blur is eminent in dating advances where there is eminent role reversal (Barreneche, 2012). Normally, men make sexual advances to women. In dating applications, anyone is in a position of making sexual advances with women taking the responsibility, a construct outside the societal expectations. The society anticipates women to negate sexual advances, while men are oriented towards sex most of the time. The worldview of sexuality is defining the sexual needs of an individual irrespective of their gender. Dating applications allow people to establish their sexual desires helping men and women to realize that they are both sexual with respect to individual interests.
The modern encounters of romantic and sexual encounters under the phenomenon of online dating mediated through dating applications is more or less a continuation of the past norms. Initially, personal newspapers, cinemas, advertisement messages in magazines, filing systems, and video dating were the mainstream dating technologies (Phua, Hopper & Vazquez, 2002; Beauman, 2011). Initially, chat rooms and bulletin boards were the primary platforms for online dating allowing people to meet and match with potential suitors through the internet and web-based communication (Light, Fletcher & Adam, 2008). Dating sites and applications converted traditional chat rooms into more personalized self-service of database-driven models. Under this consideration, online dating has altered the view of monogamous relations with considerations of the naturalness of multiple partners in the virtual communities. Interview responses identify a significant fraction of people eliciting a bisexual orientation with a masculine hardened form, thus turning to dating applications for love and intimacy. Conventionally, Brubaker, Ananny, and Crawford (2016) maintain that if a man touches another man has been branded gay, while lesbianism was nonexistent in the 20th century. Currently, same-gender relations and intimacy are normal components of life. While people build agency debates on the role and impacts of gay, lesbianism, bisexual and transgender in the society, dating applications are not discriminatory and educe a balance in relationship development.
In the recent past, people exhibited less tolerance to same-gender intimacy with people hiding their sexual orientation (David & Cambre, 2016). This study has established that dating applications allow people to be more candid and honest about their sexuality. Similarly, society is more willing to accept differences in sexual orientation of others in society. Dating applications constitute a platform where people freely share their orientation and sexual anticipations with Tinder being at the forefront of actuating this inference. People fulfill the primal need for inclusion and purpose through the development of successful and meaningful intimate relationships (De Souzae & Frith, 2012). Young adults, aged between 18 and 25 years, strive towards the acquisition of such relations to belong to a particular social group and exploit relationships in shaping and defining their identity. In contemporary societies, an increasing number of young adults are pursuing online dating, particularly using mobile phone applications in the quest for love and intimacy. A study by Finkel, Eastwick, Karney, Reis, and Sprecher (2012) on online dating established that following the launch of online dating sites and modernization of social networking dating platforms, more than 2 billion people engage in online dating globally. People meeting in a face-to-face situation are prone to shying off from expressing their true sexual interests and thus turn to dating application to begin the conversation in a socialized environment. In addition to social media in web-based computer models, mobile dating applications integrating geo-location technologies use calculative and ordering algorithms to facilitate matchmaking (Andrejevic, 2007). In Andrejevic (2007) study, the attributes of dating applications are such that these applications integrate a wide variety of user data types collected and interlined from private and corporate sectors in the development of mobile dating applications. Personal data is collected from the beginning of signing up and updated regularly in the build-up of the individual profile to define personal preferences. Such information as personal photographs, bio-data, educational background, and contacts lists are updated to increased platform confidence and optimize the experiences of users. Additionally, enhancement of the opportunity to monetize such experiences allows users to improve their anticipations.
Lastly, dating applications have resulted in a change of attitude towards sexual boundaries such that promiscuity is a norm in the current society. Similar to the findings of this study, Duguay (2017) identified that people are opening discussions with respect to sexual relations with multiple partners and the infeasibility of monogamy. Open dialogues on other sexual deviations, such as fetishism, are conventional in online spheres. Dating applications allow people with similar sexual deviations to find one another to connect with and begin communication with eventual intimacy and love. Conclusively, people are able to engage free thinking in dating applications on sexuality and gender. On the other hand, the question of sexual morality in contemporary society is more blurred than in the past.
4.2.2 Self-Presentation
Self-presentation is an important feature in everything as helps to give information about someone who is trying to start something new especially a relationship. The impression that one shows help to decide whether such relation will commence. Some individuals may fail to present themselves well in the real world because they are shy or afraid of whether they will be accepted or not. The world we are living in nowadays is getting better as a result of technological invention and introduction of dating applications compared to previous days. In ancient days, partners used to meet in different places such as church, party, schools and in clubs but through dating applications, this has been reduced. According to Finkel, Eastwick, Karney, Reis, and Sprecher (2012), individuals who failed to get lovers at the age of twenties felt shame and rejection from the people around them. This custom began to change as a result of the Gutenberg printing press which was discovered in 1685. After publishing it in papers all over Western Europe, it allowed first individual matches advertisements and in the 21st century, there were some communal changes and people started to value work more than marriage customs hence stress and force to get married decreased (Quiroz, 2013). This lead to public flexibility and individuals could get married after finishing their careers in schools and achieving their life goals and dreams.
In the 1980s, internet development changed the custom of arranged marriages and fulfilled the dreams of busy individuals who had no time to meet their life partners (Hall, Park, Song & Cody, 2010). With the invention of dating applications, individuals were able to access what they needed through their phones wherever they are. Starting a relationship in real life was hard to some individuals as it ’s was a process that required courage, time and determination, but dating applications have made it easier as its open to every individual who has mobile phones. It’s easy to create a profile in these applications and tell people about you, what you looking for and it’s through these applications an individual get a lot of matches regardless of their appearance or region. Through dating applications, this study established that individuals are able to express themselves confidently without fearing the surrounding environment as it is in real life, and dating applications is an environment for them to discover new things and speak themselves. In these applications, individuals feel more secure as their privacy is protected by application copyright and this allows them to present themselves in the way they feel. Some of the applications give individuals a chance to converse via texts and through this, individuals are able to send pictures, audios, videos and express themselves confidently to their matches (Galbin, 2014). Compared to real life dating, Glasser, Robnett and Feliciano (2009) assert that individuals who feel that they are discriminated due to their physical appearance, big, small, ugly etc., dating application allows them to create profiles with their information and it displays a huge volume of partners who are looking for individuals with such qualities and they are able to choose partners from the list. This means that dating applications allow every individual to present themselves to the world of dating using their basic information, pictures, and locations confidently so that they can sell themselves to interested partners leading to relationship and marriages (Guadagno, Bradley, Okdie & Kruse, 2012). Through dating applications, individuals are able to search their sexual partners online and so they don’t have to go to the street to search for them anymore.
In some cases, these dating applications may be dangerous because some of the people who create profiles there may have different concerns rather than dating. These dating applications can’t identify original or fake individuals and some allow any information from the user such as names and pictures. According to Kambara (2005), some individuals fake pictures and name other people e.g. if that person is a celebrity or a politician so that they deceive other individuals. Everyone try to shine in these dating applications because, in reality, some might feel discriminated and so they express themselves in ways they are not to seek the attention of others. Couch, Liamputtong, and Pitts (2012) asserted that other than originality, there are high risks of meeting deceitful individuals who created profiles with the dating applications to defraud others and asking them to give them money. Secondly, in the analysis of Finkel et al. (2012), some of these dating applications allow people to upgrade their membership and may find that the membership in the dating site is less than what they anticipated. Some individuals are every time travelers in dating application compared to real life and this because they believe in making themselves better than they are in real life. They basically use old information about themselves to create attention (Zwilling, 2013). At times, Rightler-McDaniels and Hendrickson (2014) claim that using this kind of technology can be harmful because not everything, which is posted there is genuine, some users are not what they claim to be in real life as some fakes identity. Some indicate on their profiles that they are in university studying, working in big companies, doctors in big hospitals, engineers, etc., but in real life, they are just idlers taking advantage of technology to benefit themselves in one way or the other. Some individuals are genuine and they don’t care about how they look, even if they are ugly they will post their original pictures because they are on dating application to search for real partners. Hence, Hefner and Kahn (2014) expressly determined that the ones who are in these dating application require being very careful before making a decision. The best approach to making a genuine decision is through responses, which make an individual more confident as opposed to starting a relationship by seeing appealing photographs.
Some mistakes with these online dating applications, are that at times they may display a large number of partners for you to choose, and is the same to an individual who has a personality disorder (Hou & Lundquist, 2013). These people with a personality disorder are frequent in dating applications and equally can get connections to many people. Individuals who meet online may be strangers, with some thinking that they will never meet in real life. Alhabash, Hales, Baek and Oh (2014) argue that this intuition gives people a lot of freedom, which makes them not to worry as they use online dating to do things they feel shy doing in the real world without caring about their age, appearance, regions, race, dress and many more as they interact without boundaries. Some individuals take dating applications as an advantage to present themselves in ways that will cause kindness to other individuals so that they can help them by giving them money, for example, some may post a picture having one arm or none asking people for help (Schacter, 2015). Individuals who have been cheated on these dating applications feel shame and there are no ways that you can confuse them to join or advise someone else to join because they have a negative perception about these applications. In some cases relationships in online dating applications are real and exist between two real individuals, who communicate their own words, the feelings come from them; the funniness, intelligence, understanding, and involvement all come from real individuals. Individuals are freer in a virtual world because they are secured by the shield of privacy and a single individual can meet so many people who they share common interests.
4.2.3 Perspectives of Dating Apps in General
Dating applications in mobile communication devices command a particular relief to the emerging sociocultural implications of social media with a sharp impact on love, intimacy and long-term relations (Hjorth and Lim, 2012; Light, 2016). Ideally, dating apps form a faster and more efficient medium of connecting with people to develop relations. Albury at al. (2017) established that media coverage is eliciting a sharp expansion with markedly high mass take-up. The link between public and private life related to mobile social media translates to a connection between the technology and efficient developments in dating, sex and relationships among other aspects of identities.
Dating apps are transforming the world to a more socialized entity. The societies are changing with the infiltration of mobile social media. As more people meet in Tinder every day, the more naturalized the online dating is becoming as a major component of the society. Studies identify it as an alternative that creates hope for people by filling the void of companionship in them. Goggin (2006) maintain that the more socialized dating apps become the more complex and data-intensive they become as the role in shaping, and mediating between cultures of gender and sexuality increases. By showing mutual friends to an individual, mobile dating apps define many matches for an individual to evaluate their suitability (Ranzini & Lutz, 2016). To date, mutual matches in dating apps may seem right but negative connotations attached to meeting strangers are rampant. Reviews have been made on increased short-term relations, which are attributed to increased use of dating apps, health care service providers are majoring on the impact of online dating, and their keenness to engage the society in health education via these apps is eminent particularly in same-gender intimacy (Ranzini & Lutz, 2016; Race, 2015). In health promotion and public health, the role of dating applications in facilitating development of intimate relations in different cultures is known (Raj, 2011).
Dating applications are negatively associated with social awkwardness. People meet in the virtual social space more often in the current society than in the traditional face-to-face meetings. With increased misrepresentation in the virtual communities, poor communication skills and augmented critical thinking skills poorly develop. Both Hall et al. (2010) and Guadagno et al. (2012) concluded that the experiences of women with respect to online deception are associated with their honesty while men are more prone to intentionally misrepresent themselves in the virtual communities. Similarly, Smith and Duggan (2013) links online misrepresentation to poorly defined soft skills, particularly in men than in women. The extent of inadequate communication skills is eminent when men are expectant of meeting women face-to-face as opposed to conversing in the dating apps (Guadagno et al., 2012). Outside the virtual space, men have been identified to think of themselves more and center their conversations unto themselves. This phenomenon is in relation to thinking they are more attractive that if they started a conversation via a face-to-face start-up. In a quantitative survey by Hall et al. (2010) to assess the possibility of cheating in personal information, particularly individual appearance, personality, interests, economic status, as well as current or previous relationships, the level of exaggeration, deception and self-importance in men was significantly high in comparison to the female counterparts.
The purpose for dating apps has been misinterpreted in many occasions with both men and women taking connections from online dating for granted. For instance, interview responses opinioned that dating apps are a point of acquisition of different partners as opposed to a point of initiation dates and intimate relations. A change in cultural norm suggests that women are more likely to acclimatize to the cultural contract of online dating setting such that the level of honesty is relatively high (Hall et al., 2010; Hefner & Kahn, 2014). As a result, women fall prey to short-term relations with promiscuous men. Moreover, Hall et al. (2010) established that women participating in online dating continuous perform self-monitoring than their male counterparts.
In the consideration of gender role internalization and the speed at which media is consumed, Hefner and Kahn (2014) performed a quantitative study using survey questionnaires and established that the more an individual consumed mobile media technology, the higher the probability that they are to adhere to gendered philosophies of intimacy. Such people are more susceptible to the notion of the actuality of an ideal spouse and tag themselves to particular profiles of people they deem perfect matches. The largest population of romantic media consumers is women and the conceptualization and depiction of ideal in social media is designed to inexplicably affect them. The ideal internalization is developed to play a pivotal role in establishing the normative perception and the stereotyped significant other. According to Perrin et al. (2011), this intuition reinforces gender stereotypes, which constitute discrimination that is inclined to some gender suggesting that intimacy is more significant to women than how it is to men. As such, the findings depict online dating apps as a platform where women are connoted to believe that have to attach to past gender stereotypes so that they can acquire and initiate matches, dates and relationships.
Young adults are seeking dating apps in search for attachments to peers. The internet coupled to online dating in mobile dating apps function as the apt platform for the establishment of meaningful attachments and intimate relations. Studies argue that young adults continuously feel a fabricated sense of confidence in the event they meet people in the virtual space based on their proximity. One study by Quiroz (2013) specifically evaluated the prevailing state of online dating and its evolution in the representation in mobile phone applications, with a focus on Tinder. The author asserted that the marketing of these dating applications is espoused by the creation of minimal trust illusion. While online dating embraces femininity, Quiroz (2013) describes minimalistic trust based on the assumption that since the partners who is anonymous presenting with congruent attributes and sharing parallel social circle must be trustworthy. On many occasions, people tend to assume that if minimal trust is present at the beginning of an online conversation, then a bigger trust will ensure, which is anticipated to perpetuate the development of a meaningful relationship. Dating apps that determine the location of users and match people based on proximity are thus useful in developing a thinned trust and security necessary for attachment and intimacy among young adults exploiting the services of dating apps. Conversely, Hou and Lundquist (2013) purport that the initially used web-based dating sites were designed to minimize the need for proximity in the development of intimacy between young adults. Moreover, online dating, according to Hou and Lundquist (2013) instituted the need personal expression and development of intimate self-disclosure. The above findings are suggestive of a compromise in physical proximity, which was compensated by emotional attachment and closeness in order to stimulate satisfaction of attachment needs. While physical proximity was not a mandatory requirement in traditional web-based dating, mobile dating apps construe people to mediate their intimacy through conflict resolution in the event potential partners are in a face-to-face meeting.
Early in adulthood, many people strive to acquire a sense of belonging and acceptance to particular social groups. Dating apps provide a foundation for young adults to venture into alternative connections and relations with different significant socialized people and groups with anonymity devoid of consequences of rejection. In one study by Dijk, Zeelenberg and Pligt (2003), it was suggested that young adults experience utmost loss in the event of a failure following a huge investment and high expectations of auspicious outcomes. In order to evade such disappointing outcomes, people present low expectations from their investments. Dating applications are more publicized among young adults considering that these apps allow users to commune with other users of appealing gender allowing them to make sexual advances without any tinge of rejection. The attribute of anonymity in dating apps is anchored unto the conclusions entailing “low investment, low stakes” attitude, which motivate a multitude of young adults to adopt engagement in online dating via mobile dating apps (Schacter, 2015).
Interview responses in this study suggest that anonymity established in dating applications impacts on the connotations of fidelity between potential daters. In a study comparing online dating in mobile dating apps and the traditional mediated dating, it was determined that individuals in the dating apps may not geographically located in close proximity for sexual infidelity allowing the references of infidelity be redefined in online dating. Different rational patterns and definitions of fidelity between partners who develop their relations online are different with respect to the grounds of their relationship. Such a redefinition of infidelity between online intimate relationships is characteristic of youth culture in the contemporary techno-living (Kambara, 2005). In this regard, if an intimate relationship develops online through exchange of personal information via esteemed communication with a potential partner, then chatting to another person in another dating app in addition to a partner in the initial dating app is regarded as infidelity among the young generation (Quiroz, 2013).
4.3 Summary
Based on the above-presented analysis of findings, the three themes emphasize on the fact that dating applications are popular among young adults since they present an opportunity of offering proximity in relationship development. Moreover, dating apps form a youth culture of online dating that dwells on consumer culture and the anonymity that is espoused by
