Losing touch in the online world

Mobile apps are making it easier for singles to hook up.

And now, a pertinent question that links loneliness with prostitution in the aftermath of a blog about acrimonious relations between Australian men and women:
Grindr for straight people, good or bad idea?
If you’re not familiar with the mobile app, here’s the skinny.

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Currently used by over 1.65 million people worldwide (particularly London), Grindr is a hyper-local match-making application for the gay community. Like a GPS/RSVP mash-up, users sign up to the service which delivers a catalogue of possible dates based on geographical proximity. Like the look of Gary, 23, 58 metres away, who’s looking to chat, network, and date? Exchange pleasantries via Grindr and a real-world meet-up might be organised in moments – you’re just around the corner from each other anyway …
The concept is pretty kooky and clever. But it’s not without critics.
The creators have long defended the app against those who say it poses safety risks, or promotes promiscuity.
"It’s no different from a gay-bar," they say, as others wail "but you're killing the gay-bar!"
And it is in mind of gay-bars - or any real-world meet-market for that matter - that we consider what comes next:
Grindr for straight people.
The project is already underway. Nicknamed Amicus, from the *LATIN meaning friend, the app will offer the same geo-based match-making service to everyone else when it makes it out of the beta stage. And surely, as there are gay lovers of Grindr, there shall be other lovers too.
But who will they be?
Nick Paumgarten in the New Yorker was quick to wonder whether women needed an app to tell them they were surrounded by people wanting to have sex with them.
Tech blogger David McGowan supposed the straight version would mostly be used by “randy sweaty blokes looking at prostitutes pretending to be something else, and a very small bunch of women mistakenly using it to find a husband”.
Major LGBT newsite Pink.co.uk considers the straight app might struggle to match the original if it simply offers a place-mapping service similar to what Facebook Places already does.
Meanwhile I’m trying to figure out whether the whole thing is a sign we’re more messed up than ever ...
A recent report showed that the most "connected" generation – mine – is also the loneliest, partly because what used to be a room full of strangers is now a virtual world filled with people you not only don’t really know, or know at all, but haven’t so much as shared air with.
Here’s where the gay-bar bit comes in.
While I’ve never been a fan of using bars to meet other people, particularly if you’re hoping to meet someone who could be a partner for more than just sex, I really am starting to think that’s preferable to transferring the bulk of our socialising online.
Sure, online dating sits can be marvellous. The elegant algorithms, as Professor Helen Fisher points out, make sense – from a biologic anthropological point of view at least – and I know of many happy couples matched online. I also know of many happy sex lives fuelled by online services.
Yet, physicality is so much a part of sociality – getting a feel of someone is just as important as getting a look at them – and socialising has to exist in a physical world, especially if you intend on enjoying a physical relationship.
Milling about in a bar, on the street, in crowds, around people – this is important. It is important that you may smell the air, sniff out signals, observe movement, and make the deeper, animalistic assessments that literally cannot be made in a synthetic environment. These instincts that help us get a sense of the world around us, help us grow into better social creatures, and help us lead richer social lives.
So we continue to shift our sociality online, what will happen to our instincts? What will happen to our social lives? What will happen to our relationships, really, in the long run?
Grindr for straight people might help with the easy connections so many current gay users adore it for.
But since when was the easy way the best?


Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/blogs/citykat/losing-touch-in-the-online-world-20110721-1hqma.html#ixzz1So4mMfdh