Move over Tinder- the newest social networking app has taken TCNJ’s campus by storm.
Friendsy, a new app connecting college students, has become increasingly popular on campus over the past few months. The app is aimed specifically for college students; every user must sign up with their college email address in order to verify that he or she is a legitimate student, making it exclusive to specific campuses.
I spoke with Sarayu Srinivasan, the head of marketing for Friendsy, and she is so excited about how popular the app has become over the past few months. “Right now we have about 1,700 users at our school and that has happened over the course of about a month and a half. When I brought Friendsy here, we had about 15 users,” Srinivasan said with a huge smile on her face. So it’s true- the app is trending all over campus for all different people in various organizations and classes. Srinivasan also informed me of a really interesting fact- in the past month and a half, TCNJ Friendsy users have spent a total of one years-worth of time on the app. TCNJ certainly has been busy connecting with other students on Friendsy!
Friendsy is also at various schools across the country like Bucknell and Vassar, but Srinivasan thinks that it is special here at TCNJ since people are so connected already on a personal level. She says, “Our school is such a close-knit community and when you come in your freshman year you know so a lot of people because you’re in the Towers and you’re around people so often. So in that sense, it’s [Friendsy] kind of like a virtual community. It is so college oriented.” One benefit that Friendsy has over other apps like Tinder and Bumble is that it is aimed to be safer. Srinivasan emphasized that since a person must sign up using their college email, there is no reason to think that catfishing is an option. She said, “With all the problems we have been having lately with sexual assault and domestic violence, this is a lot safer because everyone is college verified and people know your intentions right off the bat.” Friendsy is essentially a safer alternative for college students to make connections with people all over their campus. Srinivasan also states that people “can make these connections that are so important during your college years without fear”. Friendsy makes it so users won’t feel nervous or scared to branch out and meet new people, which seems to be a concern for a lot of college students who try social media apps to make emotional connections.
So here is how Friendsy works- once signed up for the app, a person can update their profile by providing certain tags applicable to them. The tags range from sporting teams, to Greek life, to various options like ‘must love dogs’ and ‘hippie at heart’. Then, a person is able to swipe through a bunch of profiles from people around the country or only at TCNJ, where they can then pick to be “friends,” to “hookup,” or to “date.”
When someone clicks one of those options on a profile, the other person will receive a notification saying that someone wants to “be friends with them”, for example. The person will then go through a series of profiles and try to choose which one was the requestor in order to make it mutual. Once it’s mutual, the users are able to message each other and actually try and form a connection. It’s definitely easier to understand if you actually try it out on the app- so why not give it a shot?