Relationships

Image: hinge

Dating app Hinge wanted to get people meeting IRL back at the beginning of March. This promotional effort offered $100 to users who take a break from the app for one day to go on a date.

For those who wanted to cash in, Hinge required users to go on a date on Friday March 6th and discontinue using Hinge for the next 24 hours. The date the company chose coincided with the National Day of Unplugging.

According to Yahoo! Fianance, users were given a simple set of instructions to follow: log in to the app to set up a date for March 6th. At 4:00pm EST on that day, users were instructed to open their apps and hit “pause your account” before closing the app. Hinge asked that they note the time, because the app will need to be paused for a full 24 hours in order for the user to qualify.

Dating app Tinder raised the alarm for users of its popular dating app as reports of coronavirus spread across the U.S., with confirmed cases in most states.

Tinder has created ads that appear as users swipe through its app, providing links to the World Health Organization’s website with recommendations for preventing the spread of the virus, according to The Hill.

The ad states: "Your wellbeing is our #1 priority…Tinder is a great place to meet new people. While we want you to continue to have fun, protecting yourself from the coronavirus is more important.”

It’s the 2020 election season, and political campaigns are competing for young voters – and turning to dating apps Tinder and Bumble for help.

Young campaign volunteers are using dating apps to chat with their matches and advertise for their candidates over dating apps, according to International Business Times. Some are even springing for premium versions of Tinder so they can change location and engage voters in other states. Still other app users are advocating for more political engagement, including announcing in their profiles that they only date registered voters.

We might be social distancing, but rest assured - singles are looking to dating apps to keep their love lives going during the coronavirus pandemic. 

A recent survey conducted by Dating.com found that there was a spike in dating app activity among users in countries around the world as the coronavirus becomes widespread. As many as 82 percent of singles are turning online as they self-quarantine in their homes.

From those surveyed, more than 50 percent of daters said that they would be interested in conducting online dates to get to know people they’ve met online to avoid spreading or catching the virus. Thirty percent of those surveyed said that they are going to just stick with messaging and chatting with matches using their dating apps until they are able to meet up in person. Notably, only 5 percent of singles reported that they are going to stop dating altogether until the virus passes.

Image: eHarmony

Sex. Politics. Equality. Mental health. Climate change. Commitment. These are the things on couples’ minds in 2020, according to eHarmony’s third annual installment of "The Happiness Index: Love and Relationships in America."

Eight-two percent of American couples say they’re happy in their current romantic relationships (down just slightly from last year’s 83%). Although there’s no exact science to creating a satisfying partnership, surveys like these offer insight into what makes successful couples thrive. Two factors at the top of the list are sex and quality time.

Couples in 2020 are more likely to prioritize sex than couples in 2019. This year’s Happiness Index found that 86 percent of couples who have sex with their partner weekly are happy. The 78 percent of couples who have sex monthly and 66 percent who have sex a few times per year are less happy than their counterparts. But it’s not just sex that matters — couples who focus on both sex and quality time with each other are happier (87 percent) than couples who focus only on sex (69 percent) or quality time (82 percent).

We’ve all seen a rom-com meet-cute. A soon-to-be couple accidentally touches hands while reaching for the same item at a grocery store. Or ends up covered in coffee when one person literally runs into the other on their walk into work. Or gets into an argument during a minor case of road rage. The best meet-cutes in movies happen under dubious circumstances, often at the most awkward or embarrassing moments of the characters lives.

In real life, most of us would prefer to meet our future partners under better conditions, and thanks to online dating, these love-at-first-site meetings are becoming a thing of the past. According to an article published by Stanford University in 2019, matchmaking is now done primarily by algorithms. Today’s heterosexual singles are more likely to meet a romantic partner online than through personal connections. But is that actually what we want?