Catfish and Dating Apps

With the popularization of social media, no one expected cyber-dating to emerge and become so popular. Almost everyone is on at least one dating app, or has been on one. With this new relationship craze, many problems have come to the surface. Tinder is the most popular dating app, a swiping game to see who is cute and who is not along with a short biography that never truly reflects the person writing it. With the increased ease of using filters, photoshop, and altering pictures to look different, it is easy to catfish users. In person dating is also based on looks, but it is much harder to catfish someone face-to-face. I agree with Sales on how online dating is creating this shallow pool of dating, as it is so easy to be completely different online.

I have so many friends and family on dating apps, especially Tinder. My brother was seeing someone on Tinder, and he ultimately got catfished. She was who she said she was, same name and height, but she was not blonde and had a very different physique than the pictures on her profile. He continued to see her for a while, but he never got over how different she was online. With the anonymity of being behind a screen, it is very easy to cheat as well. As long as your phone has a password on it, you can hide so much in it, including other relationships.

With that being said, there are upsides to online dating. The number of eligible people to see becomes significantly bigger, because the whole world is at your fingertips. This makes it easier to date many more people and truly figure out what you want in a partner. These upsides are very important, but they do not outweigh the simple ways to be untruthful on these dating apps.