Communication

A new strategy that’s gaining steam among organizers is using dating apps to reach out to potential voters ahead of crucial U.S. elections.

According to The Guardian, encouraging young voters on dating apps to go to the polls on April 4th was an important strategy in the race in Wisconsin for a State Supreme Court seat, where youth votes ensured a victory for a Democrat-backed justice in the face of increasing rollbacks of rights regarding abortion and education.

In a report from Vanderbilt University in 2020, researchers found that 31 percent of millennial respondents were using online dating services even more than before the pandemic, and an even larger percentage of Gen Z singles were turning to dating apps to meet people. At the same time, they are increasingly resistant to phone calls and texts from organizers and campaign staff, especially as they get bombarded around election time. Dating apps are a way to casually engage their commitment.

Tinder has announced two significant new features it is rolling out, including highlighting relationship types (including non-monogamy) and allowing members to display their pronouns on their profiles.

With the new update, Tinder users will be able to choose from a variety of terms to describe their relationship type, and it will display prominently on their profile just under their name and age. They can choose from descriptions like “monogamy,” “ethical non-monogamy,” “open relationship” or “open to exploring,” for example.

According to the press release, Tinder is making this shift to put relationship types more front and center, since it found that 41 percent of Gen Z users are open to non-traditional and non-monogamous relationships. This feature complements the Relationship Goals feature the company rolled out last year, which gave users the ability to specify if they are searching for “Long-term,” “short term” or long-term, open to short-term” among other types, like “just figuring out my dating goals.”

Image: Tinder

Tinder launched a new in-app dictionary which defines certain slang words used by many Gen Z singles, so that older daters can understand their language.

The Tinder Dating Dictionary, crafted by 18 to 25-year-olds at Tinder, was just unveiled in Australia. It provides a detailed list of common dating terminology, including popular terms like “rizz,” “cushioning,” and “kitten fishing.” The company responded to research that showed 62 percent of their target Gen Z market felt like they “spoke a different language” than older singles when it comes to dating.

The recent survey also found that 70 percent of 18-25 year-olds regularly use dating slang compared to 55 percent of 26 to 40 year-olds. Understanding the language, Tinder assumes, will help bridge this gap.

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:

Dating app Hinge has introduced a $60 per month subscription plan for “highly motivated daters,” offering the app’s most premium service for a hefty price tag.

The new plan will offer subscribers more exposure and better recommendations for potential matches, according to Bloomberg who broke the story. For example, top-tier subscriber “likes” will be seen before others’ likes, giving them quicker access to people who interest them.

The new tier pricing almost doubles the cost of the existing premium service of $35 per month, but is still well below matchmaking rates, which run thousands of dollars per month. The new plan was mentioned in an earnings call in November, and while the company confirms it will be launching, it has not been officially announced.

OkCupid recently surveyed its users regarding their attitudes about dating going into 2023, finding that singles are more interested in open relationships and discussions about sex.

OkCupid had nearly 10 billion responses to matching questions in 2022 which revealed what singles will be looking for in 2023.

In addition to the pandemic’s impact on dating habits in general, younger daters are driving conversation around mental health, sober dating, and attitudes towards relationships and sex, according to OkCupid’s blog. Open relationships have been around for a while, but now young daters are challenging the stigma that has always been attached to them. Over the summer, OkCupid found that there was a 26 percent increase in mentions of “ENM” or “ethical non-monogamy” compared to the beginning of 2022, and a 42 percent increase compared to last summer.

Attitudes towards open relationships have shifted globally – with 30 percent of OkCupid users saying they would be interested in an open relationship (about 8.5 million singles), with Gen Z and Millennial daters being the most interested in ENM. The numbers are highest among European daters, with 49 percent of singles in Spain saying they would consider an open relationship, 46 percent in Switzerland, 40 percent in the Netherlands, 39 percent in Germany, and 37 percent in Italy. Brazil, Australia, and Canada had 35 percent, 34 percent and 31 percent of users interested in open relationships, respectively.