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," Duguay explained.
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