Game mechanics in online dating

Josh sent me this

Not quite sure why he sent it my way except to say I’ve had very little success with Tinder myself. I have theories and to be fair the article hints at the same conclusions.

It’s playful. You put in your pictures and add some information if you can be bothered. I started with one line “Single Canadian girl in London”. It’s superficial, based purely on physical attraction, but that’s what I was looking for. You go through what’s there, if you see someone you like, you swipe right. If he swipes you too, it lights up like a game, then asks if you want to keep playing….But Tinder is addictive. You find yourself browsing and swiping and playing on.

On Tinder everything’s disposable, there’s always more, you move on fast.

A game, addictive, disposable… Like a casual game? Candy crush, angry birds, cut the rope anybody?  Somewhere on my blog I wrote about how the application affects the mindset of the user. Sure Sherry Turkle talks about this too.

Funny enough Sarah a while ago sent me a post about Tinder from Buzzfeed.

Once again, the application has an effect on the user behavior. Tinder is simply too game like. I mean I would contest that most social dating sites are using game mechanics across their sites and apps.

There seems to be much debate about if “Love is a game?” but this simply isn’t sustainable…

Food allergens warning, EU change will help

homemade-har-gow

I love dimsum, but I always worry whats inside… luckily this is going to change… real soon

Sarah sent me a link to the new Food Standards Agency’s changes. From December 2014, all food businesses will need to provide information about the  allergenic ingredients used in food sold or provided by them.

There are 14 major allergens which need to be declared:

Cereals containing gluten namely wheat (such as spelt and Khorasan wheat), barley, rye and  oats
Crustaceans like prawns, crabs, lobster and crayfish etc.
Eggs
Fish
Peanuts
Soybeans
Milk
Nuts namely almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, pecan nuts, Brazil nuts, pistachio, cashew,
Macadamia or Queensland nut.
Celery
Mustard
Sesame
Sulphur dioxide or sulphites (where added and is >10mg/kg in the finished product. Often found in dried fruit and wine)
Lupin
Molluscs like clams, scallops, squid, mussels, oysters and snails etc.

How great will this be… another nice solution to add to the allergy cards.