For college students in this day and age, dating apps such as Tinder, Bumble and Hinge are commonly used to meet potential partners. Truthfully, however, dating apps suck.
To start, the amount of creeps that infect dating apps is reason enough to not want to download them. It seems like every other person you swipe on makes you worry for your safety, and honestly, you should. You never truly know the people you’re matching with or possibly going on dates with.
Tinder itself is the best of the top three dating apps for young people, in my opinion. However, it still has enough flaws to fill a whole separate article.
First, I don’t need a notification that I missed a potential match. There’s a reason I didn’t swipe on the person, so why exactly do you need to emphasize that?
Secondly, I would rather see an advertisement every other swipe than have to pay for different aspects of Tinder. I get it, they have to make money, but I don’t want to pay to go back to someone I accidentally swiped left on. These are features I need but don’t have the money for.
Now onto Hinge, which I believe is by far the worst dating app of all. My biggest question for the developers of this app is: why do I need to like a comment on a specific photo or aspect of someone’s profile? Is it supposed to be a conversation starter? Because let me tell you, the conversation usually just turns into a “wyd” text. All I want to do is swipe right or left on someone so I’m not forced to come up with a clever comment.
Bumble seems to be the happy medium of all dating apps, but it isn’t quite perfect yet. Is there a reason the swipe feature is so reactive? If I’m just trying to scroll through someone’s profile, I don’t need it to automatically swipe right or left. I’m tired of accidentally swiping past people I wanted to match with, or having to ignore someone I didn’t want to match with.
Next, why do matches on Bumble disappear after 24 hours? This is by far the worst part of this app. I can’t tell you the amount of people I have matched with on Bumble only for them to disappear from my feed. Plus, the only way to get it back is to pay, naturally.
All in all, the entire concept of dating apps is demeaning because the entire app is based on profile pictures. There are a few prompts that allow you to show your personality, but most of the time people are swiping for the pictures, not the actual prompts. What kind of world does that promote? Not to mention the amount of people — myself included — who talk to multiple people from dating apps, which only allows for hookup culture to get worse.
For the people who have met their significant other on dating apps and believe it is the best way to meet people, good for you. But it’s also the best way for others to meet their side piece. Truthfully, the best way to meet someone is by sticking to the classic ways our parents met.
Chase Borland is a freshman studying marketing and journalism at Ohio University. The views and opinions of this columnist do not necessarily reflect those of The Post. If you have any thoughts, questions or concerns then you can contact him at cb297222@ohio.edu.
