‘Hardballing’: How young people are getting what they want from online dating

A new trend of being explicit about what you are looking for from the moment of joining a dating app is taking hold thanks to Gen Z users

Many of us these days use dating apps like Tinder, Hinge and OkCupid to meet people for various purposes. It has revolutionized the dating world, but one of the problems with apps is how easy it is to lie. Indeed, according to a 2018 study published in the Journal of Communication, almost two-thirds of the lies that appear in dating profiles are about the person’s appearance and/or their availability (e.g. whether they are single or in a relationship already).

Enter “hardballing:” the new trend of being explicit about what you are looking for from the moment of joining a dating app.

Gen Z on the apps

This change in dating app user discourse is attributed to Generation Z – young adults aged 18 to 25. More than half of the users of Tinder, for example, are people in this age group, many of whom joined the network while confined to their homes due to the Covid-19 pandemic, looking for contact with others even if it was only online. Continue Reading