Image from www.gotinder.com
Growing up, our generation was often told the world was at our fingertips. Everything is easily accessible, from information to movies to food and now, hooking up. Literally. Forget about having your next date a mere click away. Thanks to Tinder, he or she is now the next swipe away.
Tinder is the latest app phenomenon that has gotten both teenagers and adults even more hooked to their phones than ever. Unlike online dating sites such as eHarmony or Match.com, Tinder is all about “finding people near you.” The app makes use of the user’s GPS and connects them with people within a certain number of miles from them. The range of distance as well as age can changed depending on the user’s preference or, in some cases, desperation.
It’s simple and easy enough. It uses the information from Facebook to construct your own Tinder profile with your first name, age, interests, and mutual friends. Users can add photos to their profile from their existing photos on Facebook.
The rest depends on hand-thumb coordination. In order to “like” someone, users swipe the person’s picture to the right. Swiping to the left means “no.” The more swipes, the more pictures. If by some chance you meet your match, Tinder immediately adds the matched user to your list of messages so you can start up a conversation. You can always go back to the homepage and keep on swiping.
Tinder just started in September 2013, and yet there are already legions of “Tinderellas” swiping through hundreds of photos in just under a minute.
Although Tinder is quick and seemingly painless enough, there are still certain glitches that even tech support cannot fix. The biggest issue is “liking” or “disliking” someone based on appearances alone. In Tinder, almost everyone judges a book by its cover without bothering to read the summary. Never mind if the two of you share the same love for Oreo Cookies. If he doesn’t have abs worthy of being in the next “300” movie, forget it.
Nowadays an image isn’t worth a thousand words. It’s only worth two: “hot” and “not.” People tend to forget that no amount of filters will hide the ugly truth: looks fade–and not the Visual Supply Co. cam kind of fade, but the disappearing kind. Think of it this way: if you’re old and withered, what do you have left that will still make people swipe right?
