大象传媒

For millions of us, our phones or computers are the first place we go to look for romance. Dating apps are a multi-billion dollar business, and for a good few years it鈥檚 been booming. But recently there鈥檚 been discussion about whether they鈥檙e in decline, with fewer downloads and some regular users saying they feel burned out by their experiences on them.

For some, the novelty has just worn off. Others have been put off by interactions with people they鈥檝e been matched with. Host Luke Jones hears from three people who have decided they don鈥檛 want to meet people this way any more. Faith, a 27-year old Nigerian woman living in the UK says the final straw for her came when her date phoned her to arrange where to meet and she could hear a girl鈥檚 voice in the background. She asked him who it was and he said: "That鈥檚 my girlfriend, she stays with me." "He said oh they鈥檙e just going through a separation just now so they decided to take a break so he decided to download a dating app."

On the other hand, there are success stories. Dyuti in India wrote a dating app profile specially designed to filter out all non-suitable matches, then met and instantly clicked with the man who鈥檚 now her fianc茅.

Victor and Tricia are another happy couple, and would never have met without a dating app, since they were living thousands of miles apart when they first met digitally. Tricia was astonished that Victor, a Londoner, was prepared to fly to Singapore to meet her, 鈥淚f guys from the same country I was living in would not make that much effort into meeting me, why would someone from 10,000km away, fly all the way over to see me?鈥� They鈥檇 got on well online, and got on even better face to face, and were married a year later.

A Boffin Media production in partnership with the OS team.

(Photo: Faith. Credit: Faith)