Grindr is just one app that allows users to look for romantic partners through their smart phones. He added that the need to connect with others is a basic one, and he designed Grindr to fill that need.
Tinder users, who log in through Facebook accounts, can access recommended matches based on sex, age range and distance from their current location, which the app measures through their smartphones.
After two Tinder users like each other, a message box appears that enables them to chat. Meetings on dating apps such as Grindr and Tinder are based on snap judgements. But the interactions between users might not be as unlike face-to-face interactions as they seem, according to Christine Whelan, a sociology professor at Pitt. When a student is interested in someone at a party, he or she might see the other person from across the room.
In this case, the student only knows about as much as one can glean from a Tinder tagline or possibly less, but makes the decision to go over and talk to the person anyway. But Whelan said that the phenomenon of casual sex predates smartphones and dating apps. She also said casual sex might not be quite as common as many believe it is. In her conversations with students, she found that most of them hook up in the hopes, however slim, of finding a relationship.
Although Whelan disputed how many students are actually seeking casual sex, the leader of a campus advocacy group said that women are more willing to engage in no-strings-attached sex. Emily Blume, a junior English literature major, started the club Off the Hook over the summer.
