We are having less sex than our parents' generation, could dating apps like Tinder be to blame?
It's been a bad year for dating apps. In August, Vanity Fair writer and Bling Ring author Nancy Jo Sales wrote of the perils of Tinder in her think piece Tinder and the Dawn of the “Dating Apocalypse”. She reported that heterosexual young people today – in particular, men in New York – were using dating apps solely for ‘wham bam thank you mam' style soulless one night stands.
Dating apps when you're gay are a whole other ball game, but when it comes to straight couples and how they interact, is she right?
The last five years have seen a dramatic change in the way we find people to have sex with, particularly since Tinder arrived in 2012. Cue moral panic: on-air news discussions and a zillion think pieces about how dating apps have ruined dating for everyone, brought out the absolute worst in humanity and caused the end of love and intimacy (which would be quite a feat if it were the case).
How Tinder's Stopping Us Having Sex
As Dr Bernie Hogan, researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute, points out, ‘Obviously the moral panic around online dating is expected. It's a new technology, a new way of arranging relationships and if you're not participating in it it's a new form of uncertainty.'
To put the panic in perspective, let's remember that every generation reserves the right to say that ‘everything has gone to the dogs' once they get a bit older and a new wave of hedonistic youths take over at the coal face of culture: drink, drugs, sex and rock n roll.