When scrolling Tinder for a date, most people aren’t worried about the national organ shortage. However, the National Health Service in the United Kingdom is hoping to use the dating app’s popularity among millennials to increase health-care awareness.
Tinder users in the United Kingdom will see a celebrity profile, such as Olympic gold medalist Jade Jones, with a unique logo to support the cause in the coming weeks. Those who swipe right will be asked to register to have their organs donated after they die.
The NHS revealed in July that the number of people donating their organs after death had decreased for the first time in over a decade. The situation isn’t any different on a global scale. More than 122,000 people in the United States are waiting for an organ donation.
Tinder will pursue similar collaborations globally if it succeeds in the coming weeks. Tinder spokeswoman Hermione Way said the organization is committed to partnering with US health systems.
Tinder’s association with the NHS comes just weeks after the new controversy surrounding Tinder CEO Sean Rad. Rad boasted that he had slept with “about 20” women in an interview with London’s Evening Standard, and he muddled the meaning of the word sodomy. Tinder’s parent company, Match Group, immediately filed a statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alleging that the article was not “authorized or condoned by, and the substance of the article was not checked by the company or any of its affiliates.”
Tinder isn’t the first social media site to receive positive press by inspiring people to donate their organs. People were able to include their organ donation status on their Facebook profiles beginning in the summer of 2013. According to a report published in the American Journal of Transplantation, the number of people who registered as organ donors increased 21-fold in a single day. The findings were characterized as “dramatic” at the time by Dr. Andrew M. Cameron, an associate professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Cameron went on to say that social media companies’ presence might “move the needle on the big picture.”
Read: The Dating Apocalypse Is Much More Serious Than You Might Believe | The Hookup Society And Tinder
David Fleming, president, and CEO of Donate Life America said he is pleased that Tinder and other dating apps are involved. According to Fleming, it has been difficult for nonprofits to measure social media’s effect in increasing registrations in the past. He said, “But now we’re getting smarter.” “We know we need to find ways to introduce registration opportunities to people where they are, like Tinder,” says the team.
Read Also: Tinder, Love, and Care – Relationships And Social Media
Other organ donation advocacy organizations say it’s been difficult in the past to inform people about organ donation, mainly when it happens when they least expect it. However, Organize, another organ donation advocacy organization emphasizes that there are “appropriate ways” to bring up the issue on social media in a direct manner. “Organize attacks misconceptions head-on rather than pretending they don’t exist,” said Jenna Arnold, a spokesperson for the group.
Patients and their families have been using social media in droves to find potential organ donors in recent years. Kirti Dwivedi, a Phoenix resident, used a Facebook group to find a kidney donor for her mother. Jessica Goeller, meanwhile, launched a Facebook campaign called “Save Lucas” in the hopes of finding a donor match for her terminally ill son.