By Jennifer Bleyer published July 1, - last reviewed on March 25, In the beginning there was online dating , with carefully curated profiles detailing everything from education level to favorite movies and providing earnest answers to questions like "What's the first thing people notice about you? Then came the smartphone and, with it, mobile dating apps that can make online dating seem downright quaint. Forget personality ; proximity and pouty lips are the new landmarks in the quest for love.
Consider the popular "geosocial" app Tinder: You're shown a succession of user photographs, along with people's first name, age, and distance from you at the moment.
You swipe left to reject and move on to the next photo, or swipe right to express a liking, at which point you message the other or "keep playing," in the app's gamelike jargon. And thanks to the GPS connection, you know instantly if that guy with the come-hither eyes or the girl with the plunging neckline is just a block away. Proximity is a helpful parameter for those interested mainly in casual sex , the original purpose of mobile dating.
It all began with Grindr, a geosocial app for gay men. Launched in and still largely used for hookups or as some winkingly call them, "short-short-short-term relationships" , Grindr claims six million gay users worldwide and has become so entrenched in the cultural firmament that it's been namechecked on Saturday Night Live and Glee.
Location-based liaisons have surged well beyond their hookup origins, however. A report by Flurry, a mobile app analytics firm, found that the number of dating app users grew percent between and βincluding mobile add-ons to established online dating sites such as Match.
