Japanese dating app inspired by pandemic encourages office romances, fights isolation and loneliness
Conventional wisdom tells us it is wise to keep our work and private life separate. But, in Japan – with loneliness at an all-time high due to the pandemic – more than 800 companies have signed up for an AI-powered dating app in the hope of helping their employees find love.
Key points:
- The Aill goen app makes suggestions of what https://datingranking.net/nl/kasidie-overzicht/ users should say in their text messages to fast track romance
- It also gauges how much a suitor likes the other person and when the timing is right to ask for a date
- But a psychologist warns against couples using technology as a substitute for connection and intimacy
With almost two years of COVID-19 limiting the opportunity for young Japanese to interact in person, the app – known as Aill goen – guides courting couples in their text-message chats by suggesting questions to keep the conversation flowing.
It also tells the user the right moment to ask the other person out on a date as the chats progress.
Japanese companies and organisations who are using the Aill goen app say they are giving their employees access to a deep pool of potential romantic matches, who have secure jobs at respected companies and share similar values.
Baby boomers take to online dating
It was launched as a startup in Tokyo in at the height of the pandemic, when many Japanese were working from home.
“My goal was to create a platform that would make it easier for employees to achieve a work-life balance and, in turn, boost the company’s growth as well,” Aill Inc chief executive China Toyoshima told Kyodo.
“Employers were worried about the mental health of their workers, who were largely staying at home, with almost no physical interaction during the pandemic.”
Young Japanese enjoy romantic movies and TV shows and were enthralled by last October’s wedding of Princess Mako to her commoner boyfriend, Kei Komuro.
