Dating

Actor Rebel Wilson has announced the launch of her new dating app Fluid, designed to help daters find relationships that are about “love with no labels.”

The dating app allows users to set up their profiles without having to identify the gender or sexual preference of their potential partners, or to define themselves by a limited number of categories. According to Wilson, the app’s algorithm factors in the profiles you are spending more time on and serves up other profiles based on those, rather than filtering out potential matches according to sexual and gender preferences, allowing singles more opportunities to explore different types of relationships.

“This is the first dating app where you don’t have to actually define yourself or tick a box to say ‘I’m straight, I’m gay, I’m bisexual,’ and you don’t have to describe what you are looking for,” the Pitch Perfect star told People Magazine.

A new study by eHarmony found that a whopping 90 percent of singles in the U.K. believe they are addicted to dating apps, with as many as 70 percent feeling depressed or anxious after using them.

According to the researchers, almost half (48 percent) said they check their apps as the last thing before going to bed, and roughly 39 percent said they check their dating apps first thing when they wake up. Nearly a third said they check them while at work (with 31 percent of men admitting to this compared to 25 percent of women), and 12 percent admitted to checking their dating apps while on a date.

Researchers also found that 55 percent of U.K. singles believe they spend too much time on dating apps, with an average of 55 minutes per person per day. eHarmony deduced that the average person is having about 6 conversations at any given time, and 8 percent might have as many as 15 conversations at once.

OkCupid is testing ChatGPT questions to provide users of its app, harnessing the popular AI technology for itself.

ChatGPT has taken the world by storm, with millions of people testing its writing skills, so naturally daters are using it to chat with their matches over dating apps. OkCupid has often analyzed user behavior and preferences to choose new features to add, so now the dating app is sharing that it’s been sending out questions formulated not by people, but by the popular AI ChatBot.

According to Tech Crunch, the six questions generated by ChatGPT have already been answered more than 135,000 times, mostly by Gen Z users. In fact, 31 percent of Gen Z users on OkCupid said they don’t think that using AI to create a profile or message someone on a dating app is a violation of trust, according to Mashable.

The questions introduced by ChatGPT include:

A new Pew study has found that over half of dating app users (53 percent) said that their experiences have been at least somewhat positive, including 14 percent who said they had very positive experiences. About 46 percent say their experiences on dating apps have been at least somewhat negative, showing the dating population is divided on how well the platforms are working for them.

While 53 percent shows that more than half of daters have had positive experiences, dating apps have a long way to go in satisfying their customer base, as some users reported facing harassment or scams, according to the report. Peoples’ experiences also vary by race, gender and ethnicity, as well as household income and sexual orientation.

Pew reported that 57 percent of men report positive experiences compared to 48 percent of women, and 61 percent of LGB users have had positive experiences compared to only 53 percent of straight users.

Representatives from dating app companies alongside ministers, victim-survivors, government officials and technology companies attended a roundtable in Sydney to discuss safety measures needed for dating apps. They discussed adding background checks and ID verification requirements, as well as increasing transparency and sharing of data between dating app companies.

According to The Guardian, Australian eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said that “there’s no one law that’s going to fix this issue,” placing the burden of responsibility on dating app companies.

The talks were led by federal communications minister, Michelle Rowland and included representatives for popular dating apps such as Bumble and Tinder. She noted the talks were an “important first step,” according to The Guardian. The roundtable was convened after a report from the Australian Institute of Criminology found that three quarters of survey respondents had been subjected to sexual violence on dating apps in the last five years.

Image: Bumble & Netflix

Dating app Bumble has teamed up with leading streaming service Netflix to launch a game that is themed around some of its most popular shows, including Emily in Paris, Squid Game, Selling Sunset, and Stranger Things, among others.

According to Netflix’s blog post, the new game called Netflix Nights In will challenge matches to find out how deep their knowledge goes about their favorite shows by answering questions like: “How much was Davina’s infamous listing in Selling Sunset?” In a twist, the game requires matches to answer the question before responses are revealed, and both will be able to see their compatibility based on their answers.

Stars from fan favorites like Ashley Park from Emily in Paris or Jonathan Daviss from Outer Banks will present new questions each week in the app, according to Netflix.