Dressing up Tinderella: interrogating authenticity claims on the mobile dating app Tinder

Mobile dating applications (‘apps’) have increased in popularity over recent years, with Tinder among the first to break into the mainstream heterosexual market. Since mobile dating intensifies the need to confirm that potential dates are not misrepresenting themselves and are safe to meet in person, Tinder’s success indicates that it has allayed these concerns regarding the authenticity of its users. This article combines Giddens’ conceptualization of authenticity, as the ability to reference a coherent biographical narrative, with Callon’s sociology of translation to investigate Tinder’s framing of authenticity within mobile dating. Applying a walkthrough method that interrogates Tinder’s technological architecture, promotional materials, and related media, this hybrid theoretical framework is used to identify how Tinder configures an actor-network that establishes its app as the solution to users’ concerns, enrols individuals in using its features in authenticity claims, and popularizes Tinder’s framing across public discourse. This network of human and non-human actors frames authenticity as being established through one’s Facebook profile and adherence to normative standards relating to age, gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic status. However, user discourses on other social media identify and challenge negative outcomes of this framing, with normativity fostering discrimination and Facebook verification failing to prevent abusive behaviour. This case study of Tinder paves the way for future investigation into user responses to its framing. Furthermore, it demonstrates the efficacy and broader applicability of this theoretical approach for identifying both human and technological influences on the construction of authenticity with digital media.     

Farmers and Pawns: The Role of Migrants in Agrarian Conflicts and Rural Resistance in Sumatra,Indonesia

Land grabbing in relation to boom-crop production or nature conservation triggers displacement and dispossession of local communities as well as rural resistance often culminating in violent conflicts over land. In Indonesia, company-initiated oil palm production on debatable territories also stimulates migration into these contested rural areas by individual farmers who seek to become part of the boom-crop economy. Based on discussions on land grabbing and land rights this article deals with the appropriation of land by independent migrant farmers and their role as another new party in conflicts over land. The role of rural migrants in land conflicts in Jambi Province, Sumatra is shown through two case studies. The case studies highlight the importance of customary local elites and their strategic employment of social identity and political authority to facilitate land seekers’ access to contested land. The local elites transcend conceptual boundaries to generate a profitable counter-business with a set of individual stakeholders and brokers who profit from the dispossession of the masses. The case studies reveal that the migrants’ presence is essential to rural resistance and a contested resource of economic and political benefit to various stakeholders at the same time.     

Consequences of Teen Parents' Child‐Care Arrangements for Mothers and Children

Using the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (2001–2006; N ?7,900), the authors examined child‐care arrangements among teen parents from birth through prekindergarten. Four latent classes of child care arrangements at 9, 24, and 52 months emerged: (a) “parental care,” (b) “center care,” (c) “paid home‐based care,” and (d) “free kin‐based care.” Disadvantaged teen‐parent families were overrepresented in the “parental care” class, which was negatively associated with children's preschool reading, math, and behavior scores and mothers' socioeconomic and fertility outcomes compared with some nonparental care classes. Nonparental care did not predict any negative maternal or child outcomes, and different care arrangements had different benefits for mothers and children. Time spent in nonparental care and improved maternal outcomes contributed to children's increased scores across domains. Child‐care classes predicted maternal outcomes similarly in teen‐parent and nonteen‐parent families, but the “parental care” class predicted some disproportionately negative child outcomes for teen‐parent families.     

“We’ll Figure a Way”: Teenage Mothers’ Experiences in Shifting Social and Economic Contexts

The current economic and social context calls for a renewed assessment of the consequences of an early transition to parenthood. In interviews with 55 teenage mothers in Colorado, we find that they are experiencing severe economic and social strains. Financially, although most are receiving substantial help from family members and sometimes their children’s fathers, basic needs often remain unmet. Macroeconomic and family structure trends have resulted in deprived material circumstances, while welfare reform and other changes have reduced the availability of aid. Socially, families’ and communities’ disapproval of early childbearing negatively influences the support young mothers receive, their social interactions, and their experiences with social institutions.     

Nonparametric change point estimation for survival distributions with a partially constant hazard rate

Lifetime Data Analysis - We present a new method for estimating a change point in the hazard function of a survival distribution assuming a constant hazard rate after the change point and a...     

Facilitators and constraints at each stage of the migration decision process

Behavioural models of migration emphasize the importance of migration decision-making for the explanation of subsequent behaviour. But empirical migration research regularly finds considerable gaps between those who intend to migrate and those who actually realize their intention. This paper applies the Theory of Planned Behaviour, enriched by the Rubicon model, to test specific hypotheses about distinct effects of facilitators and constraints on specific stages of migration decision-making and behaviour. The data come from a tailor-made panel survey based on random samples of people drawn from two German cities in 2006–07. The results show that in conventional models the effects of facilitators and constraints on migration decision-making are likely to be underestimated. Splitting the process of migration decision-making into a pre-decisional and a pre-actional phase helps to avoid bias in the estimated effects of facilitators and constraints on both migration decision-making and migration behaviour.     

Intergenerational mobility in Sweden: a regional perspective

I employ high quality register data to present new facts about income mobility in Sweden. The focus of the paper is on regional differences in mobility, using a novel approach based on a multilevel model. This method is well suited when regions differ greatly in population size, as is the case in Sweden. The maximum likelihood estimates are substantially more precise than those obtained by running separate OLS regressions. I find that few regions are statistically significantly different from the Swedish average when measuring mobility in relative terms, while a greater number of regional differences emerge when focusing on absolute outcomes. Compared to growing up in the least favorable region, children from the most favorable region with parents located at the 25th percentile in the income distribution reach higher income ranks corresponding to approximately one monthly salary for an average Swedish worker per year.     

Prospective analysis of time out-of-home and objectively measured walking duration during a week in a large cohort of older adults

Background

Physical activity is considered an effective measure to promote health in older people. There is evidence that the number of outdoor trips increases physical activity by increasing walking duration. The objective of this study was to analyse the relationship between daily time out-of-home and walking duration. Furthermore, predictors for walking duration and time out-of-home were evaluated.

Methods

Walking duration was measured prospectively over a 1 week period by a body-fixed sensor and the time out-of-home was assessed by a questionnaire at the same days. Seven thousand, two hundred and forty-three days from 1289 older people (mean age 75.4 years) with both sensor-based measures and completed questionnaires were included in the analyses. To account for several observation days per participant multilevel regression analyses were applied. Analyses were stratified according to the time out-of-home (more or less than 100 min/day).

Results

In the group with less than 100 min out-of-home, each additional minute out-of-home added 20 s to overall walking duration. If the time exceeded 100 min the additional increase of walking duration was only moderate or weak. Leaving the home once added 40 min of walking, the following trips 15 to 20 min. Increasing age, lower gait speed, comorbidities, low temperature, rain and specific week days (Sunday) decreased both the time out-of-home and walking duration. Other variables like gender (female), isolation or living with a spouse reduced the time out-of-home without affecting walking duration.

Conclusions

Being out-of-home increases daily walking duration. The association is strongest if the time out-of-home is 100 min or less.

     

Young Children’s Developmental Ecologies and Kindergarten Readiness

Children enter the crucial transition to school with sociodemographic disparities firmly established. Domain-specific research (e.g., on poverty and family structure) has shed light on these disparities, but we need broader operationalizations of children’s environments to explain them. Building on existing theory, this study articulates the concept of developmental ecology—those interrelated features of a child’s proximal environment that shape development and health. Developmental ecology links structural and demographic factors with interactional, psychological, and genetic factors. Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), this study conducts latent class analyses to identify how 41 factors from three domains—namely, household resources, health risks, and ecological changes—cluster within children as four overarching developmental ecologies. Because it documents how numerous factors co-occur within children, this method allows an approximation of their lived environments. Findings illuminate powerful relationships between race/ethnicity, parental age, socioeconomic background, and nativity and a child’s developmental ecology, as well as associations between developmental ecology and kindergarten cognition, behavior, and health. Developmental ecology represents a major pathway through which demographic characteristics shape school readiness. Because specific factors have different implications depending on the ecologies in which they are embedded, findings support the usefulness of a broad ecological approach.