WASHINGTON: A survey has found that students who use dating apps have a “higher number of sexual partners” than non-swipers and could be contributing to the spread of sexually transmitted infections.
“We show the use of dating apps among college students is linked to an increase in unprotected sexual behaviours and a higher number of sexual partners, raising the risk of STI and HIV transmission,” said Jaquetta Reeves, assistant professor at the College of Nursing and Health Innovation of the University of Texas at Arlington.
Reeves and her team of researchers said they found a “significant positive association between the use of dating apps and engagement in risky sexual behaviours” among students.
The spread of STIs has been blamed in part on the rise of so-called hook up culture. More than half of US residents under 30 use apps such as Tinder, the team said, meaning that the spread of apps and of STIs “may be linked.”
Other researchers and commentators have complained that an unhealthy but pervasive combination of apps, pornography and deceptive photo editing – sometimes even using AI – has distorted dating habits.
The findings came after the Word Health Organization earlier this year warned that case numbers for sexually-transmitted infections were rising worldwide and after the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said there has been a “troubling surge” of infections across the continent in 2022.
Reeves’ team’s work was published in the journal Frontiers in Reproductive Health and was based on a survey of university students in the US, where since the turn of the century the incidence of chlamydia has more than doubled, while that of gonorrhoea is up by 40% and syphilis by 400%.
In late 2023, the US Food and Drugs Administration approved the first home-use tests for STIs. In Europe the number of gonorrhoea cases rose by 48% in 2022, while those of syphilis were up by 34% and chlamydia by 16%, according to ECDC data published earlier this year. – dpa/Tribune News Service
