BBC OS Conversations: Are we still in love with dating apps?
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.6K Ratings
🗓️ 14 September 2024
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For millions of us, our phones or computers are the first place we go to look for romance. Dating apps are a multi-billion dollar business, and for a good few years it’s been booming. But recently there’s been discussion about whether they’re in decline, with fewer downloads and some regular users saying they feel burned out by their experiences on them. For some, the novelty has just worn off. Others have been put off by interactions with people they’ve been matched with. Host Luke Jones hears from three people who have decided they don’t want to meet people this way any more. Faith, a 27-year old Nigerian woman living in the UK says the final straw for her came when her date phoned her to arrange where to meet. “I could hear a girl’s voice in the background. I said ‘Who is that?’ and he said, "That’s my girlfriend, she stays with me". "He said oh they’re just going through a separation just now so they decided to take a break so he decided to download a dating app." On the other hand, there are success stories. Dyuti in India wrote a dating app profile specially designed to filter out all non-suitable matches, then met and instantly clicked with the man who’s now her fiancé. Victor and Tricia are another happy couple, and would never have met without a dating app, since they were living thousands of miles apparent when they first met digitally. Tricia was astonished that Victor, a Londoner, was prepared to fly to Singapore to meet her, “If guys from the same country I was living in would not make that much effort into meeting me, why would someone from 10,000km away, fly all the way over to see me?” They’d got on well online, and got on even better face to face, and were married a year later. A Boffin Media production in partnership with the OS team. (Photo: Faith. Credit: Faith)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello I'm Luke Jones. Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service. In BBC OS conversations, we bring people together to share their experiences. This time, conversations about dating apps. |
| 0:17.5 | Millions of us use them when looking for our next relationship, but data on dating apps suggests that they might be losing a bit of popularity. |
| 0:21.9 | That's the topic of today's conversations. |
| 0:23.8 | Of course, for some people, they can help you find the right person, |
| 0:27.6 | even if they do live on a different continent. |
| 0:30.3 | I honestly did not taking seriously that he would come and visit me because if guys from the same country I was living in |
| 0:37.0 | would not make that much effort into meeting me, why would someone like from 10,000 kilometers away like fly all the way over to see me. |
| 0:44.3 | Now did you see that story the other day about the supermarket romance craze in Spain |
| 0:52.3 | this is where people put certain items, it was usually |
| 0:54.8 | pineapples, in their shopping baskets and that was a signal to other people that they were looking for love. |
| 1:01.4 | The OS team loved this story and it got us thinking about how people find |
| 1:06.1 | dates in this day and age which of course led us to start thinking about dating apps. |
| 1:10.9 | In fact we were surprised to learn that it was students at Harvard University in the United States back in 1965 who launched the first computer dating service. |
| 1:19.0 | Since then it got more sophisticated with the first online dating sites being launched about 30 years ago |
| 1:26.0 | and then we've had smartphones and a whole host of dating apps changing the whole scene |
| 1:31.1 | about 10 years after that. |
| 1:33.0 | For our first conversation, we've brought together three people all in their mid-20s |
| 1:37.0 | to compare their experiences on dating apps. |
| 1:40.0 | They're all living in different parts of the world |
| 1:42.0 | and they've used dating apps in the past, but each of them now say they feel a bit burned out by them. |
| 1:48.0 | Malilla is a Canadian living in barley. Mark is Irish living in the Netherlands, and first Faith, a Nigerian woman |
| 1:56.8 | living in the UK. How would they describe their current status? |
... |
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