Tinder users appropriating dating app for political campaigning: Study
Although Tinder is a platform facilitating casual dating, some of the app's nearly 50 million users around the world are employing it for multilevel marketing, political campaigning, and promoting local gigs, a new study says. The study, published in the journal The Information Society, found that Tinder's off-label use -- a term borrowed from pharmacology describing when people use a product for something other than what the package says -- appropriates its infrastructure, and sociocultural meanings. "When people encounter a new technology, whether it's a hammer or a computer, they use it in ways that fit their needs and lifestyle," said study co-author Stefanie Duguay from Concordia University. "However, once you buy a hammer, it doesn't undergo regular updates or develop new features -- apps do. They come with their own marketing, vision for use and sets of features, which they regularly update and often change in response to user activity,...