Why did you press that button? is back for a special episode about virtual dating in 2020. The pandemic has forced many people to stay home, which means dating has had to move online. For this episode, Kaitlyn Tiffany and I talked to online users and Bumble’s vice president of strategy about how they are adjusting to virtual dating. They try to discover what characteristics and behaviors, if any, will be maintained after the social distancing and the end of the pandemic.
Dating apps have leaned to virtual dates in recent months. Tinder is launching video calls and added a feature called Global Mode, which allows you to network with people around the world. Hinge launched a virtual dating badge that users can put on their profiles to indicate that they are inactive for a virtual date, and Bumble also expanded how far people can match and made it possible to send audio notes within the app. Bumble already had video calls available in the app, and its use, as expected, skyrocketed during the pandemic.
“We saw an 84 percent increase in video calls that were made among users,” says Priti Joshi, Bumble’s vice president of strategy. “And what we are hearing from our users is that this is basically a way to connect securely because they can’t actually connect IRL at the moment.”
Bumble says that during the last week of April, for example, video calls lasted an average of 28 minutes. People chat longer and try to make the dates of video calls more similar to the dates they would have in person.
Still, those who say they are not thrilled with all that virtual dates have to offer. Listen to the previous episode to hear three people explain their virtual dating trips and the features they hope to maintain. As always, you can subscribe to the show anywhere you usually get your podcasts. However, to make it easier, here are the usual places: Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and our RSS feed.
