ABSTRACT
This chapter adds to the book's discussion of friendship and its central role in digital cultures of care, this time in relation to young people's use of dating/hook-up apps. It has two main focus points: how dating/hook-up app use typically involves friendship support, and how young people are making and extending friendships through their use of dating/hook-up apps. Participants discussed friendship support throughout their use of dating/hook-up apps, including guidance on which apps to use and why, assessing the profiles of other app users, and workshopping app-based interactions. The chapter considers many intersections between friendship and app-based negotiations of sex and dating. It addresses the need “for more research which focuses on friendship, ‘non-conventional’ forms of sexual/love relationships, and the interconnections between the two”. Finally, the openness and flexibility of dating/hook-up apps discussed, and their reduced distance from everyday social media platforms, underscores the queer affordances of dating app use.
