Stefanie Duguay participated in the special PERFORM Colloquium Research exploring aging, behaviours, confinement, and dating; the ABCDs surrounding COVID. She gave an overview of dating app companies’ responses to the physical distancing guidelines brought by the COVID-19 pandemic. Mobilizing data from non-participant observation, analyses of content produced by dating app companies on their respective social media platforms, and analyses of media coverage on the topic, she examines how they came to fulfill the role of corporate health technologies encouraging social distancing. She problematizes this topic further by analyzing how this new position of dating app companies tied in with their commercial interests.
You can watch the presentation below.