1. Verify yourself

Most dating apps encourage their users to verify themselves. This is not a pointless, time-consuming activity – it helps add a layer of authenticity to your profile and helps people avoid scams and false profiles. This can protect you from hackers using your photos to pose as you on apps. Usually, the process is prompted upon creating an account, but you can go in the settings of most apps and do it at any time afterwards too. You’ll usually be asked to take a picture, sometimes multiple, and sometimes with your ID.  

As an example, here is a webpage on how to verify an account on Tinder. 

ID + Photo Verification

2. Be aware of the dopamine hit

Being aware of the effect of using different apps is important, so this next tip is more wellbeing related. Dating apps can create dopamine rushes with activities like matching, messaging and receiving likes, activating the reward circuit in our brains. It is important to notice when you are relying too much on the dopamine hits, and whether these are affecting your way/frequency of using the app. If you are prone to dopamine addiction in other areas of your life, evaluating your usage of dating apps might be a good place to start, if you would like to control this.  

Here is an interesting article from the Conversation discussing the court case involving Tinder and Hinge’s parent company – Match Group.  

Dating apps are accused of being ‘addictive’. What makes us keep swiping? (theconversation.com)

3. Share only what you are comfortable with

Texting people on apps can make it seem like you are more comfortable with them than you are, especially if you are planning something with them. However, be careful about how much personal information you share! For instance, if you are going to take the interaction off the app, consider connecting on social media rather than giving your phone number. This can help provide a buffer zone for your personal details and allow you to gain more of a sense of them from their digital presence. Don’t feel pressured to connect with people outside the app if you don’t want to.  

Never agree to sending money to someone on one of these apps – financial romance fraud is a large industry, affecting people of all ages. Cryptocurrency is one of the most popular methods for conducting scams nowadays.

Romance Scams online hit hundreds of thousands of victims (actionfraud.police.uk)

4. Let a friend know when you are meeting someone

When you’ve planned a date, consider telling a friend where you are heading, or even share your location with them. You can do this in-phone or using different apps. 

Some quick guides to location-sharing 

Apple

 Open the ‘Find my’ app, tap on the bit saying ‘People’ and click the Add sign, and select who to share locations with. You can also do this through the Messages app. Here is the guide from Apple Support:

Share your location with iPhone (Apple Support)

Samsung

The Samsung Find app allows you to share locations with people, or you can use Google Maps (click on profile icon, and then share location with a contact or an app). Samsung have a guide to using their Find App

How to use Samsung Find App to share your location (Samsung UK) 

Apps 

• Glympse: you can share location for a set period of time, set up groups with friends, work cross-device and access it from a web browser. You can only share your location up to 12 hours though.  

• Life360: you can make groups to see each others’ locations, good for long-term, provides alerts as well. ‘Trigger an SOS’ function exists.  

• Snapchat: although you can see people’s locations when they are active on the app, they only update when the person uses Snapchat, making it slightly less efficient than the others.  

5. Know your boundaries, and when you need to enforce them

It is easy to get caught up in the idea of dating apps, and to feel pressure on dates organised through them. It is so important to be aware of what you are comfortable with and recognise when you feel uncomfortable. Never feel pressured to do anything – even holding a conversation if you are not feeling comfortable and happy about doing so. 

This article, produced by the dating app Feeld, has a guide on the different types of boundaries you might think about, in relation to casual dating

Setting boundaries for casual dating (feeld.co)

Bumble also has a more general article about boundary-setting

How to Set Your Boundaries While Dating (bumble.com)

Thank you for reading this blog post. It was written by Aysha, Digital Safety Intern from the Digital Skills, Design and Training team. Check out our Digital Safety Hub, for more information like this and beyond!  

Digital Safety, Wellbeing and Citizenship (information-services.ed.ac.uk) 

Image attribution: The featured image was sourced from the University of Edinburgh image gallery for use by staff.  [Sam Ingram-Sills (Whitedog Photography)]

Managing Online Relationships / Digital Skills, Design and Training by is licensed under a