The rise of digital platforms is changing the face of personal relationships in India and the biggest leap has gone by Gleeden. It’s taken close to 4 million users in India now this app and so we’re seeing them committing to new kinds of interacting and that we can connect in terms of emotional connections more than anything and so do you get that in this digital world by using it.
Data indicate massive urban and IT hubs to be driving this expansion. Bengaluru is the most populated city with 18% of users and Hyderabad 17%, Delhi 11%. So much of this is happening in the big cities with fast moving lives and a large tech-savvy population, if any.
Who are the users?
As expected, about 65 percent of users are male and 35 percent female, but a lot of them are already married and long-term, so, too, in a different way from traditional dating apps.
Women users increase quickly, up nearly 148 percent in the last two years. This seems indicative of digital usage of social networks by women, and, therefore, changing social attitudes surrounding emotional networking and the way in which people learn about them and become much closer within their community to connect them.
Time Spent and Engagement
Average Indian users spend one or one-and-a-half hours a day on the app– mainly to have conversations. Digital communication seems to go at the heart of everyday lives.
Changing Relationship Dynamics
The growth of platforms like Gleeden also points to a shift of attitudes towards relationships with privacy and personal choices. Factors for this in these cases are urban isolation, pressure from the job market, changes in our expectations for a marriage and the anonymity of online platforms, but those things are not all the same.
An increase in this kind of extra-marital platform may also pose ethical and social issues. So if viewed from the purely personal point of view, people will just consider that we have freedom and see whether the value of relationships is compromised, even if we consider this to be a double standard.
A Broader Conversation
The increased popularity of these platforms demonstrates how diverse people are changing their behavior around one another -- an evolutionary evolution that is at once complex and also something a complex society needs to know.
Should we see Gleeden (in India) as a sign of a change or for concern? And it’s a growing trend that confirms a core message: Relationships, in a digital age at least, are shifting and society as always is adapting to that change of culture.
