"What's Dating, Grandpa?"

According to this past week's issue of Forbes magazine, Tinder is the world's hottest new app. This time, it is a dating app, and, as the name may suggest, it serves as a means through which singles can meet, and talk, flirt or even start a relationship. The basis of the app is browsing pictures of possible partners within the app users' areas and either swiping displayed profiles right for a, "yes, I'm interested" or left for a "no". When two people individually happen upon each other and both swipe right, a match is made and a chat is set up.

Tinder is the latest revolution in the transition to a socially digital world. It presents us with what may be the beginning of the digital dating explosion. According to Forbes, the app has been downloaded "40 million times" since it "relaunched in 2012". Also, "the 30 million people who have registered collectively check out 1.2 billion prospective partners daily- that's 14,000 per second". That is a lot of people looking to technology as their means of romance. But with the more than one third of all marriages starting on some form of dating website already, it is not surprising that this app so quickly rose in popularity. What is concerning is how this app may increase that figure in the future.
         
The revolutionary part of this app is that it is "digitizing how humans physically court"and making it "stunningly simple to do so via a smartphone". Tinder is not an alternative option to dating for those who have tried and failed to find their perfect match- as a dating site would be- but something openly available to everyone, everywhere, all of the time. And it is the first of its kind to offer this digitized dating experience and reach such popularity.

It has the potential to change the how singles interact with one another. Social environments may no longer be a game of men trying to impress or "pick-up" women. "Plays" and "wingmen" may be things of the past. This is possibly the begining of another technological change in human interaction. Why face the pressure of rejection or even put forth the effort to dress up when you can swipe through Tinder?