By Vibhavari Desai, Moitrayee Das

Since its introduction to the Indian market in 2015, Tinder has become a popular dating app. It’s no surprise that the nationwide lockdowns saw a surge in its usage — approximately 31 million Indians were using Tinder in 2020. According to a Tinder Pressroom release, on 3rd May 2020, Indian users sent an average of 60% more messages than they did at the start of the lockdowns.

Tinder has successfully positioned itself as a savvy, ‘conscious’ brand, which is attuned to its audience’s needs. Various pressroom releases indicate the different initiatives rolled out in the last two years: funding women entrepreneurs; launching the Museum of Queer Swipe Stories (in partnership with Gaysi Family); celebrating queer-owned businesses; and, facilitating conversations on consent.

Therapy Sessions

Similarly, in June 2021, days after National Mental Awareness Month ended, Tinder partnered with VisitHealth to offer free mental health resources to its users for a limited period. Until July 31, Indian nationals residing in the country could avail up to two free therapy sessions from licensed practitioners platformed by VisitHealth. Once a user’s free sessions expired, they could avail unlimited sessions at a discounted rate until December 31. Apart from access to therapists, users were offered curated content. including podcasts on mental health, guided meditations, and fitness videos.

Taru Kapoor, General Manager of Tinder & Match Group, India, explained the rationale behind launching the mental health initiative in a press release. Kapoor said, “The last couple of months have been particularly hard with nearly everyone dealing with heightened levels of grief, stress, anxiety and loss […] [we] hope that with this initiative, our members find comfort in the fact that now support is just a click away on Tinder.”

A search for the keyword “mental health” returns three articles (discussing this initiative) and three product-related articles from Tinder US’ Pressroom. To be clear, caring for users’ mental health is not the primary (or even secondary) concern of most dating apps and other companies, so we acknowledge that this was a good step in a different direction. However, the question remains: is it enough? Perhaps, more importantly, is this what we need?

Contentious Relationship

Dating apps have a contentious relationship with mental health. Numerous studies (eg, Beauchamp et al, 2017; Holtzhausen et al, 2020; Lenton-Brym et al, 2021) have indicated that frequent and long-term usage of dating apps tends to impact users’ mental health negatively. Nevertheless, this is not a problem unique to or caused by dating apps: users of social media platforms report similar issues (eg, O’Reilly et al., 2018).

Thus, while neither Facebook, Instagram, Twitter nor Tinder, Hinge, Bumble, might induce negative effects, these spaces can exacerbate existing insecurities. In a decade of its functioning and even in response to criticisms of safety, security, and privacy violations, the mental health of its users hasn’t featured in Tinder’s policies. One could argue that its 2021 initiative was a corporate strategy.
Moreover, a short-term response won’t ‘solve’ or ‘fix’ the mental health crisis; long-term structures are one of the many things we need. To be clear, Tinder didn’t claim to solve a problem, it merely offered support. However, two free and unlimited discounted therapy sessions do very little to care for people whose mental health might also be affected by your service.

Systemic Issues

In times of crisis — and the world has been on red alert for long — conversations about mental health can’t be restricted to a day, a month, or the occasional corporate scheme. It needs to be an ongoing effort, especially now because grief, anxiety, depression, illness, languishing, never were and never will be individual problems; they’re rooted in systemic issues, inadequate policies, and weak and overburdened healthcare infrastructure. Nothing exists in a vacuum, every action has a consequence for participants and (reluctant) spectators alike.

Even if Tinder (and other companies) are genuinely interested in their users’ mental health and well-being, they need to evaluate their decisions (like partnering with VisitHealth) and make those conclusions available and accessible. How successful was that initiative? How many users signed up for the free therapy sessions? How many users opted for the discounted sessions? On average, how many sessions did users attend? How were the licensed practitioners chosen? Did users provide feedback about the quality of sessions? How were complaints addressed? If Tinder or a different company were to (re)launch a similar (hopefully long-term) initiative, the transparency of this information helps stakeholders concerned create better systems.

While Tinder’s efforts have not been enough, their mental health initiative demonstrates the willingness of companies who aren’t traditionally involved in the mental health sector, to participate in it. As we think about the structures and the nuances of therapeutic interventions, it’s important to reflect on and consider such initiatives as integral dialogues in a never-ending conversation. Traditionally, the responsibility of arriving at (effective) solutions often lies on the shoulders of licensed practitioners, clinicians, scholars and educators, policymakers, and social workers, amongst others. What Tinder presents is an opportunity to rethink the role of other stakeholders.

(Vibhavari Desai is a writer interested in mental health and cyberspace. Moitrayee Das is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at FLAME University, Pune)