Tinder's direct effect on STD increases

I would answer the question of the week “does media have direct effects?” by examining the recent cases of increased STDs in young adults in the United States and internationally have been linked to the fairly new and extremely popular social-media dating app Tinder. This accusation of Tinder causing a direct effect of increased STDs broke news when the Rhode Island department of public health pointed to Tinder as a cause of the increased STDs in young adults in their state, and later other STD epidemics in Utah and Wales according to their departments of public health also blamed Tinder for the increase. The non-profit organization AIDS Healthcare Foundation creates a billboard pointing to the Tinder STD accusations. Tinder refutes the AHF claims, but eventually Tinder creates a health and safety section of their website which includes a STD testing center locator.

  How Tinder presents how to use its app, and how media portrays Tinder is causing the main effects since media makes Tinder appear to be a humorous and safe app that promotes “hook-up culture” to young adults. While media makes Tinder seem like harmless fun, media and how Tinder presents itself is causing direct effects because of the lack of responsibility they take to acknowledge they encourage high-risk sexual behavior and because of this it is leading to direct effects of the increased STD cases.

Work Cited:

Bull, S., & McFarlane, M. (2000). Soliciting sex on the Internet: What are the risks for sexually transmitted diseases and HIV? Sexually Transmitted Disease, 27(9), 545-50.

Hatch, H. (n.d.). Swipe right for chlamydia: How Tinder is sending STD rates skyrocketing. Retrieved April 17, 2017, from http://kutv.com/news/local/swipe-right-for-chlamydia-how-tinder-is-sending-std-rates-skyrocketing#.VWcjt9q6fu0

March, E., Grieve, R., Marrington, J., & Jonason, P. K. (2017). Trolling on Tinder® (and other dating apps): Examining the role of the Dark Tetrad and impulsivity. Personality And Individual Differences, 110139-143. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2017.01.025

Public Health Wales - Public Health Wales warns of syphilis risk. (n.d.). Retrieved April 17, 2017, from http://www.wales.nhs.uk/sitesplus/888/news/33044

Reported Cases of STDs on the Rise in the U.S. (2015, November 17). Retrieved April 17, 2017, from https://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/newsroom/2015/std-surveillance-report-press-release.html

Rhode Island Department of Public Health. (2015, May 22). HEALTH Releases New Data on Infectious Syphilis, Gonorrhea, and HIV. Retrieved April 1

Sumter, S. R., Vandenbosch, L., & Ligtenberg, L. (2017). Love me Tinder: Untangling emerging adults’ motivations for using the dating application Tinder. Telematics and Informatics, 34(1), 67-78. doi:10.1016/j.tele.2016.04.009

White, D. (2016, January 22). Tinder Adds STD Testing Center Locator to Dating App. Retrieved April 17, 2017, from http://time.com/4190222/tinder-adds-std-testing-center-locator/