In this digitally mediated world, initiating sexual or romantic intimacy now frequently occurs on mobile dating apps, which both requires people to navigate new technologies, but also enables them to explore different possibilities for intimacy. The opportunities that mobile dating holds for creating intimacy, and how people take these up, is particularly relevant in light of the global pandemic of COVID-19, when human connection and contact are entangled with varying worries about viral contamination, risk and future uncertainty. But how does the pandemic impact on mobile dating? How are affect and risk intertwined—or even negotiated—by people in their search for intimacy in this pandemic? What possibilities do mobile dating apps hold for people in their search for connection with others? In this commentary, I provide a brief overview of how risk has been examined previously in mobile dating research and explore what future directions could be taken in this field. I argue for research that acknowledges and prioritises: the plurality of people's sociomaterial conditions; the interrelationship between people, digital technologies and COVID-19; and the discursive context that furnishes people's sense of risk and emotional possibility across different sociocultural contexts. These new directions in the field offer opportunities to conduct critical research that is responsive to this dynamic context, and that illuminates the various ways that people are navigating intimacy, risk and emotion across different living conditions during this pandemic.

中文翻译：

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探索 COVID-19 对移动约会的影响：研究的关键途径


在这个数字媒介的世界中，发起性或浪漫的亲密关系现在经常发生在移动约会应用程序上，这既需要人们驾驭新技术，又使他们能够探索亲密关系的不同可能性。鉴于新冠肺炎 (COVID-19) 在全球大流行，移动约会为建立亲密关系提供的机会以及人们如何利用这些机会尤其重要，此时人与人之间的联系和接触与对病毒污染、风险和未来不确定性的各种担忧交织在一起。但疫情对移动约会有何影响？人们在这场大流行病中寻求亲密关系时，情感和风险是如何交织在一起的，甚至是如何协商的？移动约会应用程序为人们寻找与他人的联系提供了哪些可能性？在这篇评论中，我简要概述了之前在移动约会研究中如何检查风险，并探讨了该领域未来的发展方向。我主张进行承认并优先考虑以下问题的研究：人们的社会物质条件的多元化；人、数字技术和 COVID-19 之间的相互关系；以及在不同社会文化背景下提供人们风险感和情感可能性的话语背景。该领域的这些新方向为开展针对这种动态环境的批判性研究提供了机会，并阐明了人们在这场大流行期间在不同生活条件下处理亲密关系、风险和情感的各种方式。