Health officials in Rhode Island and Utah attribute an uptick in STDs including syphilis, gonorrhea and HIV cases to use of apps like Grindr and Tinder

The surge in popularity of “hookup apps” has been blamed for an increase in the number of STD infections reported in Rhode Island.

The number of syphilis cases in the state rose by 79% from 2013 to 2014, while incidents of gonorrhea swelled by 30%. Newly infected HIV cases increased by 33% in the same time period.

The Rhode Island department of health attributed the rise to “high-risk behaviors that have become more common in recent years”, which it said included “using social media to arrange casual and often anonymous sexual encounters”.

The news comes as another blow to users of apps like Grindr, Tinder, Blender, Happn, Scruff, Down, Pure, Glimpse, JSwipe, Hinge and more.

In May, Utah pointed to hookup apps as one reason for a huge increase in STD rates between 2011 and 2014. Gonorrhea was the most common venereal disease in the Beehive state, with infections increasing 700% over a three-year period.

“The recent uptick in STDs in Rhode Island follows a national trend,” the state health department said. “The increase has been attributed to better testing by providers and to high-risk behaviours that have become more common in recent years.

“High-risk behaviours include using social media to arrange casual and often anonymous sexual encounters, having sex without a condom, having multiple sex partners, and having sex while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.”



Lynn Beltran, epidemiologist at the Salt Lake County STD clinic, said “the perfect storm has been brewing” regarding the eruption of STD infections.

“It is becoming more socially acceptable to have casual sexual partners,” she said. Simultaneously, Beltran said that with apps like Tinder and Grindr “for people who are interested in anonymous sex: it is right their at their fingertips”.

“Fifteen years ago you would have to go to some seedy park for that,” she added.

Beltran said that as an epidemiologist, when she first heard of the gay hookup app Grindr, she thought: “Oh my gosh, this is going to be our real downfall.” The anonymity afforded by apps like Grindr and Tinder, which whether intentionally or not facilitate one-time meetups, is one of the contributors to the spread of infection.



“The biggest challenge is they are preventing us from being able to find those sexual partners and preventing STDs,” Beltran said.

Traditionally, those afflicted with an STD would go to a clinic and could anonymously provide a partner’s contact information, allowing the clinic to contact the potential infectee. When hookups are happening quickly and anonymously this is much harder to do.

“With the apps it’s virtually impossible to find people again,” Beltran said.

The proliferation of venereal disease has actually led to apps that can be used to prove that an individual is STD-free. Healthvana allows its users to access their test results online and, if they wish, share those results with potential sex partners.

Ramin Bastani, the Healthvana chief executive, said some people screengrab their Healthvana results and use them as one of the photo images on their profile, to show they are disease-free. He said the link between STDs and hookup apps was “something we’ve seen for years. Now the data is coming out to show the connection”.

“It is making people easier to find each other,” he said. “When you see the state of Rhode Island, in Utah, you’re seeing some link, you’re making it easier for people to connect, so it is probably going to be an outcome.”

“There are over 20 million new infections each year for HIV and STDs, and half of them are under 25,” Bastani said. “People of that generation are on their phones a lot and using it for everything.”

The increase may have been so extreme in Utah because state schools there teach abstinence, instead of a more comprehensive sex education.

“We need to be able to have open conversations about this,” Beltran said. “Parents, especially with your teens, young adults, you need to talk openly about this because I don’t think attitudes are going to be switching back any time soon.

“We need to talk more about condom use. We need to fight to keep up with what social media has done to sexual activity in our communities.”