Tinder is an app marketed for “online dating” often used by high school students to meet and talk to new people. When two Tinder users’ profiles come up on the other’s profile, and both of them “swipe right,” meaning they “like,” each other, they will receive a notification that they have matched and can send messages.
As part of my ongoing investigation regarding online dating (mainly Tinder) in high school, I decided to get an account of my own. Because Tinder is linked to Facebook, Tinder knows my birthday and can figure out my age, so it put myself in the 13-17 age group.
Unsurprisingly, the majority of people I swiped through were around 16-17 years old. However, then I began to come across the occasional 14-year-old. For those who can’t quite visualize that, that’s the average age of an eighth or ninth grader. Continue reading “Yes, eighth graders were on Tinder looking for relationships and hookups”