As Tinder begins to take off at Northwestern, students have different views about the new app and its ability to connect people with each other as friends, dates, or in other capacities.
The app works through Facebook, so users can see each other’s mutual friends, interests and Facebook “likes,” as well as each other’s set statuses and ages. The Tinder user either presses a green heart, the “like” button, or a red X, the “pass” option, after viewing the other person’s information and profile picture, and if both users press “like” they can send each other a message, or just continue playing.
“Because Tinder is taking a friendlier approach and saying you both have to be interested in each other to talk to each other, I think it eliminates the stigma behind being creepy that other dating services have,” said Tyler Mateen, the social media director of Tinder, whose brother, Justin, created the app a few months ago. Mateen added that unless the users mutually like each other, it is all anonymous.
People can adjust the radius, or the location where matches come up. If the radius is smaller, they might only see matches on their college campuses. “I set my distance to around 10 to 20 miles so that I get familiar faces and converse with people who I already know,” said Danielle Dolgin, a sophomore who uses Tinder. “I think it’s funny to see people who you know out of their face-to-face element in a different kind of realm.”
Dolgin is not the only person who enjoys seeing fellow students on Tinder. “I saw a fair amount of Northwestern guys on it,” Marissa Gillis, a junior, added. “It was funny.”
A sophomore, Eric Schoenbach, does not use Tinder to speak to new people. “I have never actually contacted anybody through the app that I didn’t know already,” he said.
By expanding the radius though, users are able to meet new people. “I feel like the people I know are so limited, so it’s an easy way to talk to people and potentially meet someone,” said Gabriella Kaplan, a junior who recently downloaded Tinder.
Mateen said the idea of Tinder is to give people another opportunity to meet someone they were not able to connect with before. “Let’s say you go to a restaurant and see someone and maybe you would have liked each other but the opportunity passed, Tinder gives you a second chance,” he said.
People can use Tinder in whatever capacity they want to. “People can use it for dating or for just being friends; it’s a social discovery platform,” said Mateen, who said that it began at the University of Southern California, where he currently goes to school and where his brother attended. The creators then expanded Tinder as they received positive feedback, and it has continued to grow.
Hannah Levitan, a sophomore who has the Tinder app, agrees. “It can be whatever you want it to be; for some people it’s a game, more of a ‘he’s cute, I’ll like him’ type of thing, or there are other people who take it more seriously and really use it to meet people,” she said.
Some, like Dolgin, use Tinder as a form of entertainment. “For me, it’s more of a fun game. I’m not someone who is looking for a relationship stemming from an Internet source, at least not at the moment, and for me it’s funny to go on the app and randomly get paired up with other Northwestern students.”
She has, however, conversed with people who she does not know. “I had a great game of two truths and a lie, but I make sure to keep it very PG and after the game I eliminate all future conversations if I don’t know the person,” Dolgin said.
Gillis downloaded the app after some of her friends told her about it. “I just briefly looked through it as a joke,” she said, and she does not know anyone who has seriously met someone on it, although she does not doubt that people can.
Some users, like Kaplan, have successfully met people through Tinder, and it was the first time she spoke to someone who she met online. “I downloaded it for fun, then I came across some attractive guys and starting ‘yessing’ them and then there was one who was really cute so we started talking,” she said. “We had a few Tinder message exchanges per day and eventually started texting.”
Levitan’s friend at New York University met her boyfriend on Tinder. “They ‘liked’ each other, saw they had 20 mutual friends, started talking, and now my friend is very happy in her relationship,” she said.
Students said it is just taking off at Northwestern. “A lot of people don’t know what it is,” said Kaplan.
“I think that a lot of people’s friends from other schools started telling them about it, and once people started talking about it, people started downloading it, and now it’s catching on,” said Levitan.
The idea that Tinder works through Facebook appeals to some users. “Everyone is always concerned about using online platforms for meeting people, but with something like this that’s connected through Facebook, if you want to meet someone and take it to another level, it makes it easier while still being safe,” said Kaplan. “It makes me trust it a little more because how many people make fake Facebooks?”
Dolgin also said she feels more secure because of the Facebook connection. “It shows your mutual Facebook friends so you can kind of get a sense of if the person is random or if you have mutual connections.”
Other people, like Emily Arfman, a sophomore who used Tinder for a short period of time, are skeptical. “I think it’s creepy because it can be showing you pictures of random strangers, and I’ve gotten weird messages,” she said. “You don’t know who these people are even if they are in your area, and I wouldn’t meet up with someone who I only met on an app or online,” she said.
Kaplan knows someone who was also disappointed with Tinder. “My friend who uses it has gotten a lot of weird, inappropriate messages,” she said.
The question now is whether Tinder is here to stay, or if it is just a fleeting phase. “It will be a thing at Northwestern for another week and then people will get bored of it,” Arfman said.
Other students have high hopes for Tinder. “I think that as more people start using it, it’ll become more like Facebook chat where it makes it easier to talk to people who maybe you wouldn’t normally talk to,” said Levitan. “It seems to be picking up in popularity.”