Tinder Will No Longer Welcome Users Under 18

Tech Crunch

Ever since Tinder started back in 2012, users aged 13 to 17 have been able to join the service, but have been only been able to interact with other teenagers. This allowance has been due to the fact Tinder is connected to Facebook and anyone age 13 and over can create a Facebook account. Tinder have realised that this might be a problem however and have decided that the app should now be for adults only.

They tried to make Tinder as safe for teenagers to use as they could when they were allowed on the service. Your age came from your Facebook account and you couldn't interact with adults. This wouldn't stop teenagers from accidentally matching with adults who might be willing to pretend they're younger or these teenagers might pretend they're older. It was always risky and you have to wonder why they allowed it for so long. Many people assumed that Tinder was already 18+ and are actually surprised when they find out that teenagers could use it too. This is mostly because of the reputation Tinder has and these users don't think teenagers need dating apps. The fact is that most of these teenagers don't use the app as a traditional dating or hook up app. For them it's a fun way to contact people, sometimes to troll them and it's kind of a giant game of hot or not. Some relationships might have been formed through it, but not as many as the adults using the app.

Unfortunately, this won't stop all the young users from accessing Tinder. All they need to do is make a fake Facebook account or to change their age before they make an account. Some adult users have claimed that they've come across users who look like teenagers, but whose age says otherwise. Some of those might just be young looking adults, but some of them might be a teenager hoping to get some experience with someone older so they can brag to their friends about it. That is really stupid and dangerous though and you have to hope that this new ban will encourage most teenagers to stop and think that this might not be a good idea.

Tinder have been thinking about making this change since early last year and believe it will only affect less than 3% of their global user base. That is a tiny amount of a lot of users so it seems like this update might not make much of a difference unless you're a teenager.

Rosina Brooker

Rosina is a Songbird writer with a degree in Creative Writing. She's trying to focus on her novel on the side but is glad to be playing around with apps and writing about them in the mean time! Follow her @Songbird_Rosina

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