Tinder-Ly Yours: An Exploratory Study of Malaysian Indian Youths Online Dating Through The Culture

Abstract

The pandemic has shifted the way we meet new people and thus, changed the concept of going on a date. With the sporadic and growing rates of Covid-19 cases, it may be difficult to find a relationship and maintain one while exercising social-distance. As we adjusted to this temporary reality, the dating sphere continued reinvent ways to connect people. “Today”, more Indian Malaysian youths have increased their presence on dating apps in search of love and intimacy despite their “traditional” Indian courtship practices. The main thrust of this study is to examine why the smartphone application ‘Tinder’ is increasingly popular among Malaysian Indian youth and to investigate why and how the youth use Tinder during this pandemic. The Uses and Gratifications Theory (U&G) holds major assumptions that individuals are active, rational, and objective, to the extent of being almost goal-oriented in their choices. This study conducted 30 in-depth, semi-structured interviews via convenience and snowball sampling found that online dating behaviour has the potential to help scholars have deeper understanding of how the Tinder mobile application integrated with existing religions and cultures gives insights into the nature of technological change as well as adaptation in society. This is by providing new insights into existing interpersonal communication theories focusing on relationship formation. Keywords: Courtships, Cultural studies, Indian, Tinder, Youth.