How Many People In Usa Use Dating Apps
Are we sacrificing love for convenience?
According to a new Pew Research Center report on online dating, out today, 30% of U.S. Adults have at some point used a dating app or website. That’s up from just 11% in 2013. 25% of single people in the US and UK would like to try a dating app in 2021. (Source: GWI) In 2021, more people are getting curious about dating apps, and we might see lots of virtual romances blooming. Jun 15, 2018 A survey by Statista, an online statistics, market research and business intelligence portal, revealed that 24% of people use dating sites to find hookups, 43% to find friends, and 84% to find relationships. In addition, 30% of online daters are between 18 and 29 years old, and 16% make between $30,000 and $74,999 a year.
Posted September 6, 2016 Reviewed by Lybi Ma
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and conventional wisdom both suggest that love is a fundamental human need. Most people meet their significant others through their social circles or work/school functions. However, these pools can be relatively shallow. In the search for a potential date, more and more people are switching to less traditional methods.
Online dating is really popular. Using the internet is really popular. A survey conducted in 2013 found that 77% of people considered it “very important” to have their smartphones with them at all times. With the rise of apps like Tinder (and the various copycat models), who could blame them? If you want to think about dating as a numbers game (and apparently many people do), you could probably swipe left/right between 10 to 100 times in the span of time that it would take you to interact with one potential date in ‘real life’.
With the popularity of sites like eHarmony, match.com, OkCupid and countless others, the stigma of online dating has diminished considerably in the last decade. According to the Pew Research Center, the overwhelming majority of Americans suggest that online dating is a good way to meet people. Online dating services are now the second most popular way to meet a partner.
The popularity of online dating is being driven by several things, but a major factor is time. Online dating presents an effective solution to a serious problem.
Browsing profiles isn’t nearly as time-consuming (or daunting) as mixing with people in a social context. Statistics suggest that about 1 in 5 relationships begin online nowadays. It’s estimated that by 2040, 70% of us will have met our significant other online.
The problem with a lot of online dating applications is that they don’t really work. Before you throw caution to the wind and empty your wallet into the pockets of an online app with the reckless abandon of a love-struck teenager, there are a few things you should know.
1. People lie on their online dating profiles
OK, this is hardly an earth-shattering revelation. Well duh, people want to be appealing. Most people probably wouldn’t be surprised to learn that it’s more common for people to lie in their online profile than be completely honest.
A study of over 1,000 online daters in the US and UK conducted by global research agency OpinionMatters founds some very interesting statistics. A total of 53% of US participants admitted to having lied in their online dating profile. Women apparently lied more than men, with the most common dishonesties being about looks. Over 20% of women posted photos of their younger selves. But men were only marginally better. Their most common lies were about their financial situation, specifically about having a better job (financially) than they actually do. More than 40% of men indicated that they did this, but the tactic was also employed by nearly a third of women.
While dishonesty was slightly less prevalent among the British sample, 44% did admit to lying in their online profile. In both the US and UK samples, dishonesty declined with age. Maybe older people are just more interested in projecting their real self, rather than an imagined or ideal version.
2. Looking for a relationship? That must mean all you want is sex
One of the big problems with online dating for women is that, although there are genuine relationship-seeking men on the sites, there are also plenty of guys on there simply looking for sex. While most people would agree that on average men are more eager for sex than women, it seems that many men make the assumption that if a woman has an online dating presence, she’s interested in sleeping with relative strangers. Online dating does represent the convenience of being able to meet others that you possibly never would have otherwise, but women should be aware that they probably will receive rude/disgusting messages from horny guys, sexual propositions/requests, dick pics, and a lot of creepy vibes.
3. Negotiating the scam-ternet
Let’s be honest, the internet is really just a super elaborate and sophisticated farce designed to distract you from having your pockets picked by greasy conmen in cheap suits, right? Not quite, but it is full of unscrupulous vendors looking to separate you from your money by whatever means possible (in other news, have you heard about the secret to getting killer abs in less than 7 minutes using this 1 weird trick…?).
There are pitfalls and tripwires in every sphere of life, but this may be particularly true in the context of online dating. There are literally hundreds (if not thousands) of online scams, and I’m not going to run through any in detail here, but do some research before you go giving your bank details to ‘Nigerian princes’ promising ‘fun moments’. As a matter of fact, you should probably be wary of any person, group or entity asking for any kind of financial or personal information. It might even be advisable to follow these general guidelines:
Set up an anonymous email account from a widely used email service (I_heart_scamming123@gmail.com is already taken).
NEVER give out your home phone, address or personal email address unless you absolutely trust the recipient.
Drive yourself to the date (your date doesn’t need to know where you live), keep an eye on your drink/food (…), pay half of the bill (you don’t need your date having expectations of repayment).
Of course, there are plenty more do’s and do not’s of online dating, but I guess the most important thing here is to use your common sense. If something feels off, trust your gut. You don’t necessarily have to develop a ‘trust no-one and sleep with one eye open’ approach to online dating, but it is probably worthwhile to have a healthy degree of skepticism in general.
4. Relationships don’t last
Never mind the fact that more than one-third of all people who use online dating sites have never actually gone on a date with someone they met online, those that somehow do manage to find someone else they are willing to marry and who is willing to marry them (a vanishingly tiny subset of online daters) face an uphill battle. According to research conducted at Michigan State University, relationships that start out online are 28% more likely to break down in their first year than relationships where the couples first met face-to-face. And it gets worse. Couples who met online are nearly three times as likely to get divorced as couples that met face-to-face.
However, it isn’t all misery and woe. While the overwhelming majority of romantic relationships still begin offline, around 5% of Americans who are currently in either a committed relationship or marriage indicate that they met their significant other online.
5. It makes you picky and judgmental
It’s very easy to send one course back (or even one after another) when the menu is overflowing with other potential courses. According to the Association for Psychological Science, reviewing multiple candidates causes people to be more judgmental and inclined to dismiss a not-quite-perfect candidate than they otherwise would be in a face-to-face meeting.
In the more than two decades since the launch of commercial dating sites such as Match.com, online dating has evolved into a multibillion-dollar industry serving customers around the world. A new Pew Research Center study explores how dating sites and apps have transformed the way Americans meet and develop relationships, and how the users of these services feel about online dating.
Here are 10 facts from the study, which is based on a survey conducted among 4,860 U.S. adults in October 2019:
1Three-in-ten U.S. adults say they have ever used a dating site or app, but this varies significantly by age and sexual orientation. While 48% of 18- to 29-year-olds say have ever used a dating site or app, the share is 38% among those ages 30 to 49 and even lower for those 50 and older (16%). At the same time, personal experiences with online dating greatly differ by sexual orientation. Lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB) adults are roughly twice as likely as those who are straight to say they ever used a dating platform (55% vs. 28%).
2A small share of Americans say they have been in a committed relationship with or married someone they met through a dating site or app. About one-in-ten U.S. adults say this (12%), though these shares are higher among LGB adults, as well as those ages 18 to 49.
Pew Research Center has long studied the changing nature of romantic relationships and the role of digital technology in how people meet potential partners and navigate web-based dating platforms. This particular report focuses on the patterns, experiences and attitudes related to online dating in America. These findings are based on a survey conducted Oct. 16 to 28, 2019, among 4,860 U.S. adults. This includes those who took part as members of Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses, as well as respondents from the Ipsos KnowledgePanel who indicated that they identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB). The margin of sampling error for the full sample is plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.
Recruiting ATP panelists by phone or mail ensures that nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. This gives us confidence that any sample can represent the whole U.S. adult population (see our Methods 101 explainer on random sampling). To further ensure that each ATP survey reflects a balanced cross-section of the nation, the data are weighted to match the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories.
For more, see the report’s methodology about the project. You can also find the questions asked, and the answers the public provided, in this topline.
3Roughly six-in-ten online daters (57%) say they have had an overall positive experience with these platforms, including 14% who describe their experience as very positive and 43% who say it was somewhat positive. Fewer users – though still about four-in-ten – describe their online dating experience as at least somewhat negative, including 9% who describe it as very negative.
People’s assessments of their online dating experiences vary widely by socioeconomic factors. Around six-in-ten online daters with a bachelor’s or advanced degree (63%) say their experience has been very or somewhat positive, compared with 47% among those who have a high school diploma or less. The ratings online daters give their overall experience do not vary statistically by gender or race and ethnicity.
4While online daters generally say their overall experience was positive, they also point out some of the downsides of online dating. By a wide margin, Americans who have used a dating site or app in the past year say their recent experience left them feeling more frustrated (45%) than hopeful (28%).
Other sentiments are more evenly balanced between positive and negative feelings. Some 35% of current or recent users say that in the past year online dating has made them feel more pessimistic, while 29% say these platforms left them feeling more optimistic. Similarly, 32% say online dating sites or apps made them feel more confident, whereas 25% say it left them feeling more insecure.
5Majorities of online daters say it was at least somewhat easy to find potentially compatible partners. Many online daters say they could find people on these platforms who they were physically attracted to, shared their hobbies and interests, seemed like someone they would want to meet in person or were looking for the same kind of relationship as them. At the same time, there are some gender differences in how hard or easy users say it was to find compatible partners.
For example, women who have ever used a dating site or app are more likely than men to say they have found it very or somewhat difficult to find people they were physical attracted to (36% vs. 21%) or who like someone they would want to meet in person (39% vs. 32%). By contrast, male users are more inclined than female users to say it was at least somewhat difficult to find people who shared their hobbies and interests (41% vs. 30%).
6Women are more likely than men to categorize certain information as essential to see in other users’ profiles. Among online daters, 72% of women say it was very important to them that the profiles they looked at included the type of relationship the person was looking for, compared with about half of men (53%). Women who have online dated are also more likely than men to say it was very important to them that the profiles they looked through included a person’s religious beliefs (32% vs. 18%), occupation (27% vs. 8%) or height (22% vs. 8%).
Other gender differences – such as the importance of users including their hobbies and interests, their racial or ethnic background or their political affiliation – are more modest.
7There are stark gender differences in the amount of attention online daters say they received on these sites or apps. Overall, online daters are more likely to say they did not receive enough messages than to say they received too many, but users’ experiences vary by gender.
Roughly six-in-ten men who have online dated in the past five years (57%) say they feel as if they did not get enough messages, while just 24% of women say the same. Meanwhile, women who have online dated in this time period are five times as likely as men to think they were sent too many messages (30% vs. 6%).
How Many People In Usa Use Dating Apps
8Younger women are especially likely to report having troublesome interactions on online dating platforms. About three-in-ten or more online dating users say someone continued to contact them on a dating site or app after they said they were not interested (37%), sent them a sexually explicit message or image they didn’t ask for (35%) or called them an offensive name (28%). About one-in-ten (9%) say another user has threated to physically harm them.
These rates are even higher among younger women. Six-in-ten female users ages 18 to 34 say someone on a dating site or app continued to contact them after they said they were not interested, while 57% report that another user has sent them a sexually explicit message or image they didn’t ask for. At the same time, 44% report that someone called them an offense name on a dating site or app, while 19% say they have had someone threaten to physically harm them.
Dating App Statistics 2020
9Americans have varying views about the safety of online dating. Roughly half of Americans overall (53%) say dating sites and apps are a very or somewhat safe way to meet people, while 46% believe they are not too or not at all safe.
Public perceptions about the safety of online dating vary substantially by personal experience. A majority of Americans who have ever used a dating site or app (71%) see online dating as a very or somewhat safe way to meet someone, compared with 47% of those who have never used these platforms.
Among the public as a whole, women are far more likely than men to say dating sites and apps are not a safe way to meet people (53% vs. 39%). Views on this question also vary substantially by age, educational attainment and race and ethnicity.
10More than half of Americans (54%) say relationships that begin on a dating site or app are just as successful as those that begin in person. A smaller share of U.S. adults – though still about four-in-ten – say these kinds of relationships are less successful than relationships that begin in person.
At the same time, half of Americans say online dating has had neither a positive nor negative effect on dating and relationships. Smaller shares say these platforms have had a mostly positive (22%) or mostly negative effect (26%).
Note: Here are the questions used for this report, along with responses, and its methodology.