Are couples ready for dating in the metaverse?
- RELATIONSHIPS SCIENCE & TECH
Life&More- 0
- 2 minutes read
Team L&M
Dating apps have tremendously transformed how people find love and form connections these days. These apps are now beginning to look at the metaverse as the next place to find and celebrate love. Despite the preliminary concerns, the future of dating may be headed into the metaverse.
This was revealed by UserTesting (NYSE: USER), a video-based human insight, which recently captured the reactions of men and women in India and other Asian countries, around the practice of video chatting and virtual reality interactions in dating apps.
The responses focused on understanding key dating habits in a post Covid setting, uncovered some interesting insights. While video chatting emerged as the most popular trend amongst young people looking to find special connections online, the discussions further revealed that concepts such as ‘dating in a metaverse’ were commonly perceived as highly futuristic, niche, and appealing.
The key highlights:
Couples optimistic about ‘dating in a metaverse’; seek more clarity: More than 80 per cent of couples on dating apps reported their openness to try new formats of dating such as metaverse. A few expressed concern over the lack of clarity about the functioning of a metaverse. The most common replies were: “I wouldn’t be too serious about it” (dating in a metaverse), “I’m all for tech, but I would still want to meet in person”, “Will perhaps treat it as an early, low-commitment date option”
Video chatting continues to find shein with online daters: As people started getting comfortable with video chatting formats such as Zoom, dating apps too introduced video chatting formats for their customers. The feature, quite a hit, garnered a strong satisfaction score (4.17 on a 5 point scale) amongst young daters. The advantages were fulfilling- retaining privacy related to phone numbers, not risking a COVID exposure, and, “video chatting often serves as an ‘intermediate step’ to in-person dates, especially when a match reaches a specific stage.”
