Publication:

Risk perceptions and behaviours among youth using dating applications in Mumbai

Background One of the primary goals of young adulthood is to establish a committed romantic relationship. During the last decade, Internet has become an important platform to initiate contact with potential romantic/sexual partners. The study aims to estimate usage of dating apps among young adults and understand the implications of their use.

Methods A cross-sectional study was done amongst 18-25 years college students from a metropolitan city of India. Minimum sample size required for the study was 1012. Ethical approval was obtained from IEC and data was collected via a Google form amongst students from colleges in particular area of city. Data was entered in Excel and analyzed through SPSS software.

Results Of the 1641 participants of the study, 208(12.7%) were using dating applications, more in males (14.9%) in comparison to females (11.2%).  Most common reason for use was finding love/partner (30.3%), casual sex (28.4%) and exploring/experimenting (26.9%). Association between use of dating applications was statistically significant with gender, duration of stay in city, relationship status, sexual orientation and habits. Untoward incidents and regret due to use of app was observed in 24(11.5%) of the users. Majority of the participants affirmed that dating apps do not provide any information about STIs and predatory profiles.

Conclusions The risk factors associated with dating apps were male gender, residing in city since more than a year, habits like smoking, alcohol etc, sexual orientation and relationship status. Untoward incidents due to use of apps need to be managed by legal safeguards and regulation.