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The spread of the Internet has transformed the dating landscape. Given the increasing popularity of online dating and rising immigration to Canada, this study takes an intersectional lens to examine nativity and gender differentials in heterosexual online dating.

In 2018, a random-digit-dial telephone survey was conducted in Canada. Logistic regression models were used to analyze original data from this survey (N = 1,373).

Results show that immigrants are more likely than native-born people to have used online dating in Canada, possibly because international relocation makes it more difficult for immigrants to meet romantic partners in other ways. In online-to-offline transitions, both native-born and immigrant online daters follow gendered scripts where men ask women out for a first date. Finally, immigrant men, who likely have disadvantaged positions in offline dating markets, also experience the least success in finding a long-term partner online.

Extending search theory of relationship formation to online dating, this study advances the understanding of change and continuity in gendered rituals and mate-selection processes in the digital and globalization era. Integrating search theory and intersectionality theory, this study highlights the efficiency of using the Internet to search for romantic partners and the socially constructed hierarchy of desirability as interrelated mechanisms that produce divergent online dating outcomes across social groups. Internet dating, instead of acting as an agent of social change, may reproduce normative dating practices and existing hierarchies of desirability.

This chapter explores courage as an emotionally involved form of action. The notion of courage is challenging as we have physical, psychological, moral and existential forms of courage but also because what engenders courageous actions is still somewhat of a puzzle within social science. Firstly, I introduce the main forms and explanations of courage. Secondly, dating is discussed to illustrate how courage is an important analytical category to understand people's actions. In dating persons often overcome their fear of being rejected. During the COVID-19 crisis, new insecurities and fears were added to the practice of dating which now could imply both fear of being infected and fear of moral condemnation by others who would consider dating a morally irresponsible behaviour. Thirdly, I discuss theoretical and methodological implications of a mini analysis of a story about active and direct dating interactions during the first lockdown period in Denmark during the COVID-19 crisis. Often courage is thought of as so extraordinary that it is not part of people's ordinary social life. But it is not. People do experience situations that call forth courage, which implies overcoming fear and insecurity in striving to realise goals more important than avoiding feeling such uncomfortable emotions – situations in which they cannot merely rely on routine and/or self-confidence and others' trust. Consequently, this chapter explains how and why courage is an important analytical category for the sociological enterprise. Finally, the conclusion offers some reflections concerning courage and dating in future neo-COVID predicaments and how courage can be studied methodologically speaking.

The purpose of this study is to explore and identify the privacy concerns of smartphone app users pertinent to app usage.

Adopting a qualitative phenomenological approach, the authors conducted semi-structured interviews with app users to explore the app users' privacy concerns.

Credibility concerns, unauthorised secondary use and vulnerability concerns are the three major privacy concerns of app users, under which these concerns have sub-concerns, i.e. popularity, privacy policy, stalking, data sharing, hacking and personal harm.

The findings are useful to app marketers, app developers and app stores. App marketers, app developers and app stores can use the findings to understand and properly address app users' privacy concerns, thereby increasing the apps usage.

By exploring the privacy concerns of app users, the authors' study extends the literature and provides a theoretical development of individuals' privacy concerns in the context of a widely used technology, i.e. smartphone applications. Accordingly, this study contributes to the consumer privacy literature.

Mobile apps usually have a short lifespan, and this prevents the majority from surviving long enough to generate revenue for their developers. To address this issue, this study aims to recognize the role of engagement and immersion and develops a cognitive-affective theoretical framework to associate these factors with the lifespan of an app. Moreover, the authors focus on gaming apps because of their dominance on mobile platforms, and because a few of them become lucrative while the majority perish within a few weeks.

This study uses a longitudinal survey-based approach to collect data on one of the popular gaming apps (Pokémon Go), which received international attention. The design focuses on identifying factors that extend the lifespan of the app and affects users’ decision to continue or stop using the app over time. The authors use the survival analysis and structural equation modeling to analyze the theoretical framework.

The authors find the centrality of the users’ experience of immersion to extend the mobile app lifespan. Engagement influences immersion and immersion predicts users’ decision to continue or stop using the app. Users’ experience of immersion increases the probability of the apps’ survival by 12%.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the only study that proposes a theoretical framework, meticulously investigates the factors that can lead to survival of a mobile app and uses longitudinal data for the empirical analysis.

This study aims to argue that user’s continued use behavior is contingent upon two perceptions (i.e. the app and the provider). This study examines the moderating effects of user’s perceptions of apps and providers on the effects of security and privacy concerns and investigate whether assurance mechanisms decrease such concerns.

This study conducts a scenario-based survey with 694 mobile cloud computing (MCC) app users to understand their perceptions and behaviors.

This study finds that while perceived value of data transfer to the cloud moderates the effects of security and privacy concerns on continued use behavior, trust only moderates the effect of privacy concerns. This study also finds that perceived effectiveness of security and privacy intervention impacts privacy concerns but does not decrease security concerns.

Prior mobile app studies mainly focused on mobile apps and did not investigate the perceptions of app providers along with app features in the same study. Furthermore, International Organization for Standardization 27018 certification and privacy policy notification are the interventions that exhibit data assurance mechanisms. However, it is unknown whether these interventions are able to decrease users’ security and privacy concerns after using MCC apps.

In this research, the authors focus on mobile cloud computing (MCC) collaboration apps that are multiplatform and send the users’ data to the cloud. Despite their benefits, MCC collaboration apps raise privacy concerns, as the users’ information is sent to the cloud where users lack direct control. This study aims to investigate why users disclose information to MCC apps despite privacy concerns and examine the effect of security and assurance mechanisms (i.e. privacy policies and ISO/IEC 27018 certification) on users’ perceptions and information disclosure. Based on three surveys conducted in 2016 (n = 515), 2017 (n = 505) and 2018 (n = 543), this study finds mixed results regarding the relationships among security, assurance mechanisms, utilitarian benefits and information disclosure.

This study conducted three scenario-based surveys in the USA in 2016 (n = 515), 2017 (n = 505) and 2018 (n = 543).

This study finds mixed results of relationships among security, assurance mechanisms, utilitarian benefit and information disclosure.

With proliferation of MCC apps, the investigation of how users make privacy decision to disclose personal information to these apps is sparse. This study, for the first time, investigates whether the signals of assurance mechanism decrease users’ privacy concerns. This study also examines the interplay between security and privacy within information disclosure behavior. Finally, this study was conducted in 3 years to enhance the generalizability and robustness of findings.

Rape culture, described as when “violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent” (Buchwald, Fletcher, & Roth, 1993, p. vii), exists online and offline (Henry & Powell, 2014). Much of the research on rape culture focuses on the experiences of heterosexual women, and few studies have explored rape culture in the context of dating apps. This chapter explores how men who have sex with men (MSM) understand and experience rape culture through their use of Grindr and similar dating apps. A thematic analysis of interviews with 25 MSM dating app users revealed problematic user behavior as well as unwanted sexual messages and images as common manifestations of rape culture on dating apps. Participants explained that rape culture extends beyond in-app interactions to in-person encounters, as evident by incidents of sexual violence that several participants had experienced and one participant had committed. Participants were unsure about the extent to which MSM dating apps facilitate rape culture but asserted that some apps enable rape culture more than others. This chapter demonstrates the importance of investigating sexual violence against people of diverse gender and sexual identities to ensure their experiences are not minimized, ignored, or rendered invisible.