Abstract
AbstractA growing body of literature focuses on gay men's use of mobile dating applications or “dating apps.” Running on smartphones and working with GPS, dating apps connect users to others in close geographic proximity and often in real time. These apps allow users to create profiles to present themselves and interact with each other to reach multiple goals, such as casual sex, dating, or networking. Attending to the dynamics between communication technologies and society, this article reviews gay dating app studies that highlight the communicative practices and social relations mediated by dating apps. Using the mediation framework as a starting point, we examine major themes in these studies, including gay men's online self‐presentation and interactions, gay community in the digital era, and gay men's interpersonal relationships. We suggest that future research should pay more attention to the technical development of dating devices and the transformation of gay men's social relations.
Highlights
Recent years have seen a surge in gay men's use of mobile dating applications or “dating apps.” Running on smartphones and working with GPS, dating apps connect users to others in close geographic proximity and often in real time
Dating apps designed for gay men, or more broadly, men who have sex with men (MSM), such as Grindr, Scruff, and Jack'd, have become an object of study for social science researchers
We identify the debate on gay communities in the digital era (Davis, Flowers, Lorimer, Oakland, & Frankis, 2016) and new forms of social relation afforded by dating apps (Race, 2015a, 2015b) as two major themes concerning researchers
Summary
Recent years have seen a surge in gay men's use of mobile dating applications or “dating apps.” Running on smartphones and working with GPS, dating apps connect users to others in close geographic proximity and often in real time. Dynamics between communication technologies and society, this article reviews studies that highlight communicative practices and social relations mediated by dating apps, rather than the correlation between dating app use and sexual risk practices that concerns HIV prevention researchers. As we mentioned earlier, researchers of the NU Social Media Lab explore self‐presentation and interaction on gay dating apps, and this focus gives us abundant detail about users' practices that are shaped by the technological attributes of devices.
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