The Future of Online Dating: Statistics Report
The technological era is upon us but has the popularity of apps overtaken the era of the internet. Online dating has become increasingly popular in today’s fast paced society. The newest trend amongst young consumers has been the app addiction, there’s an app for anything and everything. The world of dating has become a jungle of selfies and likes but what are the preferences of today’s consumer?
The history on online dating began shortly after the popularity of the internet in the 90’s. Before online dating began phone dating was the closest alternative consumers could access. Phone dating was limited by high costs, hard to navigate platforms and limited users. Before 1990 the world of dating involved other methods of matchmaking (Cali, Coleman & Campbell, 2013). By 2004, there were 844 dating websites on the internet (Online dating, 2014). The dating platforms are either a paid for service of free. Jupiter Research, a consumer research company reported that in 2006 the online love networking industry pulled in $649 million in profits (Cullen, Masters, Woo, & Singh, 2008).By 2011 the industry of online dating exploded bringing in $1.3 billion in profits (Slutsky, 2011, p. 32). Plenty of Fish is only one of the major online dating websites; in January of 2011 the free dating site had 122 million visitors. The online dating world began making phone dating appear too expansive and obsolete. Online dating and app dating platforms allow users to create profiles, filter possible mates, send text based messages, VoIP calls and recently video chat has become a popular option. With so many options available in the online dating world consumer research is key to understanding what the future of love will be.
Since the popularity of the internet the world of love has shifted. Today when single people are looking to attract a mate they update their profile where before singles would go looking around the bar. Society’s attitudes have shifted as online dating gained popularity. According to Cali, Coleman, and Campbell, 61% of internet users feel online dating is a good way to find a mate and 79% on internet users feel that online dating is a great way to meet people (2013).
American’s today are more likely to find their mate using online and application dating than by any other method (Altenberg, 2012, p. 922). In the United States alone web and app dating attract over twenty-five million users per month. Around the globe that number soars to over 122 million people looking to online and application dating for love.
The matchmaking industry has become a part of modern culture making further research on this topic important for consumers. This study sets out to define the preferences of online dating users by analyzing the frequency they use online web dating platforms and application platforms followed by a crosstabulation of the participants based on their age.
Online Dating Vs. App Dating
Before we can analyze consumer preferences between online and app dating we need to define the terminology. The difference between online and app dating are the platform used in the medium. Below are dictionary definitions used to define the terminology.
Online Dating Definition: Also known as internet dating, online dating provides individuals with a website to communicate and connect with others for the intentions of networking to find friendship, romance, or sexual relationships (Online dating, 2014).
App Dating Definition: More commonly referred to as dating apps. Apps is an abbreviation of the word application. So in definition a dating app is software used to network for the purpose of building personal, romantic and sexual relationships. A key feature of most dating apps are that they can be installed on mobile devices.
Methodology
The study examined the preferences of individuals between the ages of 18 -30. The tables that present the findings are from descriptive statistics in the SPSS one being a cross tabs and the other a frequency.
Hypothesis: Individuals who are between 18 and 30 years of age will prefer to utilize application dating to online dating.
Online Dating Vs. App Dating User Preferences
Conclusion
The future of love appears to be app based. The study found that only 32% of respondents used web based platforms where 69% of the study’s respondents reported using dating apps. When the results were cross tabulated the younger group of respondents (ages 18-25) reported more frequently using dating apps (18), where the next age group (ages 26-30) showed a slightly lower use of app dating platforms (12). The future of love is clearly defined in the study dating apps are the way to find a date today and tomorrow.
References
Altenberg, M. (2012). Playing the Mysterious Game of Online Love: Examining an Emerging Trend of Limiting § 230 Immunity of the Communications Decency Act and the Effects on E-Dating Websites. Pace Law Review, 32(3), 922-954.
Cali, B. Coleman, J. and Campbell, C. (2013). Stranger Danger? Women’s Self-Protection Intent and the Continuing Stigma of Online Dating, Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 16(12), 853 – 859
Cullen, L. T., Masters, C., Woo, L., & Singh, M. (2008). We Just Clicked. (cover story). Time International (Canada Edition), 171(5), 66-69.
Online dating. (n.d.) TheFreeDictionary.com. (2014). Retrieved December 10 2014 from http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/online+dating
Slutsky, I. (2011). Get Hooked Up With The Big Business Of Online Dating. Advertising Age, 82(7), 32.
