When someone decides to use a dating app, it means that they are present for the mere purpose of dating. The first option they will look at would be someone who looks attractive or charming enough to get their attention. Personality, which is usually faked or “beautified” online, will come second. So love apps push people to make the wrong judgments. In addition, it’s not safe or trustworthy. How would you trust that the person you’re chatting with online isn’t looking for another partner on the app? How would you know that he or she isn’t talking to other people and is only being faithful to you? The lack of human interaction and the presence of a virtual world makes it difficult for people to trust who they deal with. In addition, love apps take away the idea of romance as love is all about the personal interaction and finding your partner by the role of fate and destiny. It happens by coincidence without intentional planning or searching. It’s about having face-to-face conversations, having a physical touch. However, love apps take all this pleasure away. There is a detachment and absence of eye contact or body language that enables you to understand who that person really is. All people do through apps is post a reasonably attractive picture of themselves, post a brief biography and wait for someone to initiate a conversation upon their convenience; it is quite similar to applying for a job. According to the famous dating app Tinder, over 100 million matches have been made since its launch, including 50 marriage proposals - only 50! This further shows that love apps aren’t meant for people who are looking for a longterm relationship.
It seems that love has become part of our extreme online shopping as it is like the process you go through when you’re doing online shopping, a dating app enables you to see your “best option” and you can take it from there. You’re literally purchasing “love”, which is the main human characteristic that differentiates us from other living beings. If we want to live in a true world away from “virtual” relationships and friendships, we have to go out and explore the world rather than rely on an app to do the job for us.
— The reader is an Egyptian media person based in Sharjah
