Healthy Dating 101 Guide, written by Schachter of Consent Wizardry, kicks off new initiative from the world’s most popular dating app to help address young daters’ anxiety around consent

LOS ANGELES — November 19, 2024 — Today, Tinder announced the launch of a new in-app Healthy Dating 101 Guide, a first-of-its-kind resource created for Tinder by consent educator, intimacy coordinator, and leading voice on consent philosophy Mia Schachter, published in the app’s Safety Center. With only 38% of surveyed U.S. college freshmen saying they learned about consent previously in school¹, the guide is the first part of a new Healthy Dating 101 initiative from Tinder to help provide young daters on the platform with credible and empowering consent education that discusses how to navigate conversations about boundaries from the start of their dating journey. Tinder will also be promoting the guide to new Tinder U users after their first match – before they even send their first message – via an in-app notification over the next month.

Organized by relationship stage, the guide provides actionable ways to integrate consent at each step, helping to reduce anxiety around potential consent missteps—a common challenge, as 63% of surveyed U.S. college freshmen reported feeling nervous about making mistakes, despite the majority feeling informed about consent basics². Through Schachter’s holistic approach, the Healthy Dating 101 Guide helps young daters develop both the confidence and clarity to express their desires and boundaries comfortably.

“We do ourselves a disservice when we limit consent to the sexual realm. We expect ourselves and others to be able to practice a very complex form of communication and self-awareness for the first time during sex, one of the most high stakes activities two or more people can engage in, with little to no practice,” Schachter said. “When we engage in consent in all areas of our lives, we get the practice necessary to navigate more complicated situations.”

The Healthy Dating 101 initiative reflects Tinder’s larger commitment to supporting a safer and more inclusive experience for new daters globally, which includes recent campaigns in Australia, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Japan, and rolling out more than 20 trust & safety features in the last three years, including multiple features that help users learn safer dating behaviors.

In this same spirit, each section of the Healthy Dating 101 Guide poses questions to help daters consider their own preferences and boundaries and help prepare for conversations with less fear of negative reactions or awkwardness.³ Topics explored in the guide include: deciding what people get to know about you; earning trust; knowing your red flags; people pleasing; figuring out what you want and asking for it; limitations, resources, capacity; moving through mistakes; navigating nonverbals; and finally, sex.

“Among surveyed U.S. college freshmen, the results show a striking disconnect between students’ confidence in their intentions–versus their reported abilities–when it comes to navigating the complexity of consent conversations,” said Dr. Sara Konrath, a social psychologist at Indiana University who provided consultation on the survey. “Resources like the Healthy Dating 101 Guide can offer helpful solutions to foster communication skills and increase students' comfort with the topic of consent, its complexity, and how to have difficult conversations about these topics.”

“Tinder is committed to fostering authentic connections and promoting self-discovery, and emotional safety is at the heart of that mission,” said Nicole Blumenfeld, VP of Trust & Safety Operations at Tinder. “By partnering with leading experts like Mia Schachter and trusted NGOs, we’re not only sparking essential conversations but also providing resources that aim to empower young daters to form healthy, respectful relationships.”

U.S. users can find the Healthy Dating 101 Guide in the in-app Safety Center.

Key Findings: In a new survey of 2,004 U.S. college freshmen commissioned by Tinder and conducted by Sago, in consultation with Indiana University’s Dr. Sara Konrath:

• Only 38% of students said they learned about consent previously in school, and only 34% said they received any consent education as part of their freshman orientation. Meanwhile, over half of students reported getting their consent education from social media (53%).

• While a majority of students reported being confident in their understanding of consent (78%) and even in navigating conversations with people with different boundaries (66%), a majority also reported worrying about making mistakes about others’ boundaries (63%), holding back on their own desires as a result (57%).

• At the same time, about half (51%) of students said that they often feel overwhelmed or burned out by others’ demands.

• When it comes to having conversations about consent, the biggest barriers reported include potential negative reactions (21%) and concerns about awkward conversations (26%).
  • For potential negative reactions, students’ responses focused on worry about how others might react to their true thoughts and feelings, particularly when there’s a risk of conflict, argument, offending someone, being rejected, or other negative reactions in friendships or romantic relationships.
  • For concerns about awkward conversations, students’ responses centered around worry about feeling uncomfortable or making others feel uncomfortable because of the difficulty of talking about these issues or potential awkwardness.
• When asked what question(s) they would want to ask a consent educator, the most common responses were ways to communicate consent. These students asked questions along the lines of:
  • What is the best way to ask for consent? How to engage? How to figure out such conversations with others? How to effectively communicate with each other without making it awkward?
  • How to communicate my boundaries more clearly? How do I set boundaries without hurting anyone’s feelings? How do you say no without hurting someone?

Gender & Sexual Orientation Breakdown for Survey Questions⁴:

Methodology: The research was conducted by Sago US between August 26 and September 12, 2024. The survey was conducted among 2,004 college freshmen in the U.S. using an online panel sample. The main sample consisted of young adults aged 18-19 in the U.S. (2,004). The main sample data has been balanced to the known college student population proportions for age by region, and ethnicity, while gender was balanced as follows: 50% men, 48% women and 2% genderqueer or nonbinary persons. The margin of error for the total sample is +/- 2-3 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. Sago is a member of ESOMAR, ISO Certified, and adheres to the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (DPF) Program.

About Mia Schachter: Mia Schachter is a consent educator, writer, speaker, podcaster, and artist. After spending ten years in New York working in theater and visual art, they returned to their hometown of Los Angeles in 2018. Their BA in Philosophy, and their academic background in gender studies, ethics, and neuroscience informs their work. They can be found at consentwizardry.com and on Instagram @consent.wizardry.

About Tinder:
Launched in 2012, Tinder® revolutionized how people meet, growing from 1 match to one billion matches in just two years. This rapid growth demonstrates its ability to fulfill a fundamental human need: real connection. Today, the app has been downloaded over 630 million times, leading to over 97 billion matches, serving approximately 50 million users per month in 190 countries and 45+ languages -  a scale unmatched by any other app in the category. In 2024, Tinder won four Effie Awards for its first-ever global brand campaign, “It Starts with a Swipe™”.

Tinder is a registered trademark of Tinder LLC.

¹ Third-party survey of 2,004 U.S. college freshmen commissioned by Tinder and conducted by Sago, August-September 2024 (“2024 Survey”)
² 2024 survey
³ 2024 survey
⁴ This table shows how respondents of different genders and sexual orientations responded to certain questions about beliefs and behaviors in the survey. This is not an exhaustive list or direct reproduction of the survey.