General News

Dating app Bumble recently surveyed its users to get a clearer picture of what singles are looking for as we head into the New Year, and found that attitudes are shifting when it comes to gender, sex, and work-life balance.

Surveying 14,000 of its users, Bumble’s findings point to some major shifts taking place in the dating world, notably around work-life balance. Workaholism is no longer prized, especially among younger daters who prefer to make time for breaks and leisure. More than half of all respondents said they are actively creating more space for rest, and 13 percent said they would no longer date someone with a very demanding job.

The pandemic’s effect on the workplace and peoples’ ability to keep working from home has also shifted attitudes about who to date. Thirty -three percent of respondents around the world say they are now more open to travel and cultivate a relationship with someone who doesn’t live in the same city.

Tinder announced the launch of its newest feature Relationship Goals, offering users more clarity and insight into what potential matches are looking for.

Relationship Goals will be part of the user’s profile, where they can display their dating goals. Some of the choices offered in the dropdown box include whether they’re looking for a “long-term partner,” “long-term, but open to short-term,” “short-term, but open to long,” “short-term fun,” “new friends” or “still figuring it out,” according to Tech Crunch.

Each description comes with an added emoji and is displayed as a highlighted banner at the top of the user’s profile, above the “About Me” section. According to Tech Crunch, Tinder will also offer weekly prompts to users asking if their relationship goals have changed and to make that change on their profiles for more clarity and transparency, an acknowledgement that attitudes and goals shift over time.

Image: Bumble

Dating app Bumble hopes to share more positivity over its app with the launch of its new feature Compliments.

According to Tech Crunch, Compliments lets a user write a compliment to another user, even before they match. The recipient will be notified of an unread compliment when they log in to the app, putting it front and center. Each user is allowed one message per day to send in the Compliments feature.

To send someone a Compliment, users can look through a person’s profile and see what they would like to message about. The Compliment can be sent on whatever strikes a chord – something they wrote in their bio, a profile prompt response, or anything else. When the user has a Compliment in mind, they can click on the yellow icon at the bottom left corner of a profile (with a heart inside of a speech bubble), and a text box will open where the Compliment can be written. There is a limit of 150 characters per Compliment.

Image: OkCupid

Dating app OkCupid recently surveyed its users to assess the state of dating around the world in 2022. The company found that users are increasingly interested in discussing mental health and inflation concerns with potential dates.

Nearly all 1.6 million respondents from around the world said that mental health was as important as physical health, a noticeable shift in what daters are willing to talk about as they are getting to know each other. In fact, there was an 18 percent increase in people mentioning “mental health” and “therapy” on OkCupid profiles compared to last year. Part of the reason according to OkCupid is that Gen Z is driving these conversations and are a growing demographic. Discussions about mental health have also increased in the wake of the pandemic.

One of the most-asked questions on the platform is “are you sensitive?” and more than 90 percent of singles surveyed said they are (51 percent said sometimes, and 42 percent said all of the time). The company noted that admitting this seems to garner more attention and better response, especially for men.

An Illinois Court will hear a case against Match Group’s Tinder app over how it collects and stores the biometric data of its users.

According to Global Dating Insights, the way Tinder stores sensitive data such as physical characteristics and body measurements violate the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). Tinder (and parent company Match Group) failed to gather signed consent from Illinois users before retaining facial scans. This data is collected as part of Tinder’s photo verification feature, a new safety measure launched by the company to help reduce fake profiles and potential scammers on the app.

Illinois has specific regulations regarding not only the storage of the biometric data, but also disclosing information to the user about how that data will be handled and managed. Specifically, the plaintiffs allege that Tinder’s process poses a security risk because of what might happen if the data were to be obtained by hackers. As Global Dating Insights points out, biometric data is extremely sensitive data as it is a permanent identifier of the user, as opposed to passwords which can be changed.

Match’s annual Singles in America study found that one in five singles are hesitant to have sex in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade, which protected abortion rights for women across the country. Singles are also changing their habits due to the rising costs associated with dating.

Match found that four out of every five respondents have adjusted their behavior as a result of the Supreme Court’s ruling, including increasing their use of condoms and having a greater fear of getting pregnant.

The survey found that seven in ten singles still maintain that sex is a good thing and improves their mental health, and 71 percent feel better after having sex. Still, they are more hesitant to have sex because of the Supreme Court decision. Many states are enacting legislation to either restrict or ban abortions altogether, placing more of a burden on single women who are of child-bearing age to seek medical care.