LinkedIn Is Transforming Into the New Tinder and More?

Have you been actively using LinkedIn, the main professional networking platform?

LinkedIn serves as both a digital CV and a business card for many people, including myself. It’s a platform for businesses to exhibit themselves, interact with people from all around the world, and facilitate the sharing of industry knowledge.

LinkedIn has long been a source of information on industry trends, entrepreneurial endeavours, employer branding, and technical breakthroughs.

We’ve celebrated successes, talked about business intricacies, and shared prospects.

Recent patterns, however, indicate that the platform is evolving, and not always in the intended ways:

Personal Blogs on the Rise:
An increasing number of users are treating their articles as personal diaries.

While sharing personal journeys has significance, one wonders if LinkedIn is becoming more of a daily diary, similar to Facebook or Instagram.

The increase of LinkedIn influencers promoting the “rise at 5 a.m. for productivity” credo indicates a shift in content approach. To be sure, there are certain posts that truly inspire and instruct.

From socialising to… dating?
Surprisingly, LinkedIn appears to be used as a dating platform by some. Many people, particularly women, report unwelcome approaches on the network. Is LinkedIn evolving into a sort of Tinder? The statistics point to an ominous trend.

Though LinkedIn has about 900 million members who use it for business purposes, a segment appears to be more engaged in personal hobbies. Disturbingly, some women have left the platform because they are fed up with the tendency.

A Haven for Fraud and Identity Theft? :
Identity theft and fraud on LinkedIn have become a growing concern by the end of 2021. The platform’s flaws were frequently highlighted by cybersecurity specialists. According to one analysis “LinkedIn has become the platform of choice for Phishing attacks.”

LinkedIn profiles contain a wealth of information that makes it appealing for fraudsters to concoct convincing scams or even assume someone’s professional identity.

Anecdotal data dating back to 2012 shows that LinkedIn has always had a subset of members with non-professional purposes. As the lines between social networks blur and the natural human yearning for friendship endures, we see platforms merge in unexpected ways.

Tinder’s motto, “Match, Chat, Date,” is straightforward. However, when applied to a platform such as LinkedIn, the ramifications are far-reaching. Is it now possible to find a “professional” match on LinkedIn just to discover they’ve been catfished?

It begs the question: as digital environments change, are we experiencing a shift in how we seek both professional and personal connections?

Finally, any platform’s evolution is a reflection of its user base. It is up to us to decide what we will accept and what we will reject.

This post was written by Mario Bekes