Looking: Using Proximity-Based Dating Apps like Grindr and Scruff for Participant Recruitment in Education and the Social Sciences

Nick Havey

Looking (for research participants)? Consider “the Apps” 

If you’re familiar with the HBO series Looking, which explores very white queer life in San Francisco, or have used a dating app in the last 10 years, you might know “looking” as a one-word interrogative that says a lot. It mostly is meant as a lazy (or efficient) way of asking another user if they’re interested in casual sex, but you might be “looking” for research participants! Having a baseline understanding of how dating apps work is prerequisite for using them for research purposes, as understanding terms like “looking” and app-based norms can help researchers navigate confusing virtual spaces and build trust and rapport with potential participants. 

I have used proximity-based dating apps as recruitment sites for two different research projects. One considers the state of queer sexual education and how queer collegians are responding to sex educations that were not inclusive of their experiences or desires, completely heterosexually focused, or just absent. The other is about how queer white men understand and describe their relationship to race and racism in college. I used Grindr and Scruff as supplementary recruitment sites for these studies because not everyone goes to the LGBTQ center, reads emails, or feels safe at a campus Pride meeting. In fact, many of my participants have mentioned that they were initially unwilling to go to physical queer spaces and instead preferred apps for exploration of their identities. A lot of young queer people find community, friends, dates, sex partners and information about sexual health, relationships, housing, and engagement with queer communities on these apps (Woo, 2013, 2015). Understanding that students are potentially underserved by existing programming options can help the joint fields of higher education and student affairs reshape their approach (making all sex education programming queer inclusive so students uncomfortable at the Pride Center get something). Some of the students I have been able to connect with are not able to be out at home or on campus and social media and dating apps can offer a layered physical and virtual space to explore their sexual identities in ways they can control. These apps allow users to decide their level of anonymity and disclosure and facilitate otherwise awkward in-person acts with technological ease (Blackwell, Birnholtz, & Abbott, 2015). For these participants, apps have functioned like a “gay bar” in their pocket, connecting them (and me) to people they would otherwise not have had access to (Blackwell, Birnholtz, & Abbott, 2015, p. 1127; Brubaker, Ananny, & Crawford, 2016; White Hughto, Pachankis, Eldahan, & Keene, 2017). As someone who used these apps during my own sexual identity development at the start of college, I feel comfortable on them but also recognize that I am a cis white man. My identities make me statistically more likely to be filtered for by other users (by race, by height) and thus more successful in however I want to use the apps (being responded to). I also do not present as much older than the students I am attempting to recruit, which might mean that I am responded to at a much higher rate than other researchers. 

This blog post discusses the pitfalls and benefits of using proximity-based dating apps like Tinder, Grindr, Scruff, Hinge, Bumble, and Her to identify and recruit LGBTQ research participants for studies in education and the social sciences. I begin by defining proximity-based dating apps. Then I identify some potential uses in research using examples from my own work and talk logistics. Finally, I indicate some potential areas for concern. 

What Are “Proximity-Based Dating Apps”?

Phrases like “swipe left” and “super-like” are common to today’s students and early career researchers. However, for my advisor, who is married, and hasn’t had to date since the early 90s, the existence of Grindr was shocking. You might feel similarly! 

The emergence of proximity-based dating apps like Grindr and Tinder was a direct result of the development of smart phones and their associated applications. Both Grindr and Tinder allow users to create profiles with or without images (of themselves or… anything), age and demographic information, physical metrics like height and weight, and an “about me” section that people almost unilaterally hate filling out. They both also allow users to link their profiles to other social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. 

Proximity-based dating apps can be a safe virtual place for participant recruitment, survey distribution, and content analysis. This strategy has already been employed by enterprising scholars in public health and the social sciences. For example, they have used them to recruit for large-scale public health studies working to remedy poor community sexual education (Bauermeister, 2012), provide resources to marginalized groups (Young & Rice, 2010), and to identify concerning and racist trends among users (cyberspace is still a predominantly white area, Robinson, 2015). Despite use of them in other disciplines, the use of dating apps as research sites has not been thoroughly explored in education. This might be due to a lack of interest, resources, or simply because some researchers have been able to find participants for their studies in real life and have not explored alternative recruitment venues. Like the people in public health who took to the apps knowing that they would find the participants they were looking for, educational researchers might similarly consider cyberspace as the next frontier of participant recruitment.

Tinder and Grindr both show users other users in their area. On Tinder, you can restrict who you see to a distance radius; Grindr simply shows you the nearest 100 or so profiles using location triangulation software that is both concerning and shockingly accurate. While Tinder requires a mutual consensus on interest (“It’s a Match!”), Grindr users do not need the consent of others to send a message or picture or indicate interest (a “tap”). Grindr users (and Scruff users, which is another dating app for burlier, hairier queer men) can also restrict their “grids” by age, race, “tribe” (queer subcategories that are largely based on body type), and intention (casual sex, dates, networking, chat, etc.). 

For researchers, the varying accessibility of participants on these apps offers immediate contact (messaging anyone who immediately fits your criteria and is in your proximity), the ability to filter to your criteria (by age, by race, by partner-seeking behavior [casual or committed]), and the opportunity to engage in active forms of recruitment. Location is particularly useful for some research, as, if you’re on campus, the people most near to you are likely students, staff, or faculty. Similarly, many college-age users’ photos and profiles indicate their student status (a school spirit sweatshirt in a photo, listing their school in their profile information). Demographic information is also regularly reported, which can help researchers filtering for certain identities. 

Logistics

Recruitment using proximity-based dating apps can be difficult. While no apps have a clearly articulated stance against using their platforms as a site for research recruitment – and both Grindr and Scruff are regularly sites for studies with paid advertisements (these can cost anywhere from $1,500-$25,000) – profile photos must be approved by the app and neither app approved an image of my recruitment flyer. 

After consultation with both apps and my IRB, both of whom recommended I use a picture of me, I took down advertisement images and put up a professional headshot and limited information about the study on my profile. This strategy led to successfully recruiting participants. I would recommend working closely with both your IRB and the apps you’re considering using (even if it just means closely reviewing their terms of service and sending a clarifying email to their customer service team) before starting, though there are some things that IRB can’t protect you from. 

The Unfortunate Realities of Dating Apps

Academia can often be a site of unsolicited feedback, but I would much rather receive critiques on my methodology than a series of unsolicited and graphic nude images of a stranger. On both accounts I’ve used to recruit for my studies, I have received dozens of unsolicited nude images of other users, often with little to no pretext, as well as aggressive and sometimes disturbing messages about my proximity (“you’re so close,” “I can see you”), that a user that does not have a picture posted has seen me (“I saw you walking past the library, you’re cute”), and more than one asking if I wanted to buy drugs. 

Some users have messaged me to tell me that the stock photo I used for my profile before I changed it to my own photo was “hot”, some have asked if they could “study me” followed by some lewd emojis and even lewder remarks, and some have simply chosen to move past the content on my profile that clearly indicates I am conducting a research study and not “looking” and sent me pictures of their genitals. Two very kind users also expressed their interest in actually helping me with my studies as research assistants and have since participated in the studies instead. 

While these experiences are not uncommon to queer dating apps – prior usage taught me that lesson – and these apps are not necessarily intended for research recruitment, the nature of the virtual environment can present challenges. I do not engage with these profiles, in fact, I often report and block them, but the users behind these profiles could very well be future or current students, peers, staff, or faculty. Planning for the messy inevitabilities of recruitment through dating apps should be incorporated into your research design. I recommend clear discussions with your IRB about the level of disclosure of your profile (“This is a research account. Unsolicited sexual advances or harassment of any kind will be reported and blocked.”) and how you might navigate uncomfortable experiences with other users and potential participants (peer debriefing, blogging about it, memoing). 

You too might experience these things if you choose to recruit participants through proximity-based dating apps, but you might also find users who just want to tell you their stories and help you help others. Talking to and meeting these people certainly makes up for the onslaught of unsolicited garbage that prior app use prepared me for and hopefully reading this can, in some small part, prepare you to successfully use dating apps in your own participant recruitment and research.  

Successes and Takeaways

Recruitment through these apps has been more successful than my other recruitment methods (posted flyers, listservs) and several participants have commented that the ability to moderate their disclosure changed a definite “no” to a “yes.” Proximity-based dating apps are thus a potentially fruitful site for participant recruitment for populations that might otherwise not reply to other recruitment methods or simply for populations that don’t occupy the spaces you’re recruiting in. In my experience, recruiting queer participants for research studies can be one way to move “beyond the asterisk” (Shotton, Lowe, & Waterman, 2013) to amplify voices that exist but are not often heard in the literature. I also found that recruiting in a more personal setting like an app facilitated rapport with participants that I simply didn’t build with others who responded to recruitment flyers. One participant, Christian, was uniquely helpful to the work due to his commitment to member-checking and willingness to ask his friends to participate. 

I also found that this rapport ensured that the work felt more deeply connected to the participants’ stories and less like the transactional work that is evident in public health. Reflecting on my experience using the apps to recruit participants, which at the time felt both stressful and disconcerting given the number of unsolicited nudes and harassment I received, I would recommend education researchers to be cautious. The apps have a lot to offer and can certainly bolster your recruitment numbers, but they may be unsafe spaces for certain (read: non-cis white men) researchers to navigate. Multiple trans and queer of color participants in my studies indicated this was true for them. Finally, researchers should ensure that, if they use dating apps as recruitment or analysis sites, they are truthful and honest about their intentions and strive to avoid simply extracting information from the participants they meet online. Meeting someone through your smartphone, particularly if you don’t subsequently meet them in person, can make it easier to discount their wishes, capitalize on their narrative, and forget they exist. It can, but it shouldn’t. 

References

Bauermeister, J. A. (2012). Romantic ideation, partner-seeking, and HIV risk among young gay and   bisexual men. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41(2), 431-440.

Blackwell, C., Birnholtz, J., & Abbott, C. (2015). Seeing and being seen: Co-situation and impression formation using Grindr, a location-aware gay dating app. New Media & Society, 17(7), 1117-1136.

Brubaker, J. R., Ananny, M., & Crawford, K. (2016). Departing glances: A sociotechnical account of ‘leaving’ Grindr. New Media & Society, 18(3), 373-390.

Nicolazzo, Z. (2016). Trans* in college: Transgender students' strategies for navigating campus life and the institutional politics of inclusion. Stylus Publishing, LLC.

Robinson, B. A. (2015). “Personal preference” as the new racism: Gay desire and racial cleansing in cyberspace. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 1(2), 317-330.

Shotton, H., Lowe, S., & Waterman, S. (2013). Beyond the asterisk: Understanding Native American college students. Stylus Publishing, LLC.

White Hughto, J. M., Pachankis, J. E., Eldahan, A. I., & Keene, D. E. (2017). “You Can’t Just Walk Down the Street and Meet Someone”: The Intersection of Social–Sexual Networking Technology, Stigma, and Health Among Gay and Bisexual Men in the Small  City. American Journal of Men's Health, 11(3), 726-736.

Woo, J. (2013). Meet Grindr. Lulu.com.

Woo, J. (2015). Grindr: Part of a complete breakfast. QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, 2(1), 61-72.

Young, S. D., & Rice, E. (2011). Online social networking technologies, HIV knowledge, and sexual risk and testing behaviors among homeless youth. AIDS and Behavior, 15(2), 253-260.\

About the Author

Nick Havey is a 3rd year PhD student in the Higher Education and Organizational Change program in the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. His research interests fall under three areas: the intersection of whiteness and queerness, queer romantic and sexual politics, and student political organizations and political engagement. He works with Mitchell J. Chang (Professor of Education and Asian American Studies) and is an Editorial Assistant for the Journal of Higher Education.