Each week, TODAY’s long-running Big Read series delves into trends and issues that matter. This week, we look at the growing popularity of dating apps in Singapore and its implications. This is a shortened version of the full feature, which can be found here.

SINGAPORE — Not too long ago, many Singaporeans would be unconvinced that love could be found online.

For those who did find Mr or Ms Right online, they would be hesitant to reveal where they first met.

But now, it is increasingly common to attend weddings where the bride and groom met online, “you hear it in their wedding speeches even”, said 29-year-old public servant Jason Ye.

In about six months’ time, Mr Ye too, will be getting hitched to his fiancé, Ms Seah Ling Ling.

He and Ms Seah got together in March 2017, within a month of connecting with each other on the dating app Coffee Meets Bagel (CMB).

Exactly a year later, Mr Ye proposed.

“It seems pretty fast, but modern dating has sped up because of apps,” he said “It allows two people with very similar intentions to meet, so that helps to accelerate the process.”

“All the good and bad, you compress it into two, three years because we meet so often,” he said.

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Dating apps, from the likes of Tinder, CMB, OkCupid — which are all based in the United States — to homegrown apps such as Paktor, have radically changed romance and the way singles date.

With their speedy account set-ups and “swipe to like” interface, coupled with their “secret recipes” (the algorithms which match different users), dating apps make finding a potential date much faster and efficient as well as more convenient than ever before.

They have also changed where people meet: Since the early 2010s and the nascent days of online dating, the Internet has overtaken schools, universities, and offices as settings in which singles could potentially meet a partner.

Singapore Management University (SMU) associate professor of psychology Norman Li said: “Before dating apps and technology, people would get introduced to others through friends and family. In the really old days, marriages were pretty much arranged."

He added: “Now, decisions are made more by the individuals and less by the considerations of family and friends.”

Singapore and Hong Kong are two Asian cities in which adoption of dating apps has grown in the last few years.

CMB co-founder Dawoon Kang told TODAY: “Both cities are full of educated, young professionals, many from overseas, who are eager to meet new people but just can’t make the time for it.”

For busy Singaporeans who are single but have no time to mingle, dating apps could be the antidote to expanding their social circles quickly and efficiently.

The upsides of dating apps are aplenty: It allows users to look beyond one’s immediate social circle, widening the pool of potential suitors, and dates.

Dating apps could also allow users to date more broadly, by opening up a pool of racially and ethnically diverse users.

In addition, apps have given users some way to “cut through the clutter”, by allowing them to set up filters or indicate preferences for their matches — though the degree of control varies for different apps. ‘

Ms Jessebelle Peh, 29, who met her husband on the app Paktor, said this was particularly useful and important as it allowed her to filter out those she was could to “suss out” potential matches for traits she was looking for.

Many users, while welcoming the broadening of choice that the online world offers, are also becoming aware of its downsides.

Users could fall prey to love cheats, and catfishing, where a person creates a fake social media account, often in order to deceive another.

There are also emotional downsides to using dating apps, as many looking for love may also experience being “ghosted”, which refers to when someone cuts off contact often abruptly, without reason and a proper goodbye.

Assoc Prof Li said that a possible consequence in the age of dating apps is that “relationships end up getting shorter and much less stable”.

The main reason for that is the multitude of choice available on the app. He said: “What has changed is that people now have access to a wider net than ever before. When you perceive that you have many options, then it gets you to shift more towards a short-term mating strategy rather than a long term one.”

He added: “There’s no need to sign a long-term contract (with one particular company), when you have 50 companies a day offering you jobs.”

This is the paradox of choice: Given such limitless choice, there is a constant temptation to think that there is a better option out there, industry players and experts said.

But couples who have found love online believe otherwise, with most of those interviewed saying that once they decided to get together, they deleted the dating apps.

While dating apps serve as a good “gateway” to get to meet new people, the real work begins after connecting online.

Said Ms Peh, who has been married to her husband for about three years: “It doesn’t mean that just after connecting on the app and meeting, there will be a fairytale ending. The real relationship is built offline, through communication.”