Are Most Couples Really Meeting Online?
Exposing another meme graph
It has become commonplace to hear that ‘most people meet online now’, confidently asserted as if it’s not even up for debate. If you ask for a source, you’ll get this updated version of a previously famous graph—which I’ll add has been officially noticed by the current richest man on earth.
Personally, viral ‘line go up’ graphs like this immediately set off alarm bells. People might see the ‘n=6,519’ and assume that the data must be fairly reliable, but this is misleading, as it includes those who met as far back as 1950. What we’re really interested in are the number of people who met in more recent years. These numbers are much less impressive, but especially after 2017, as this data comes from follow-up surveys of the same respondents—many of whom were no longer panel members or didn’t respond.
For the years driving the big spike, the number of observations aren’t even enough to fill a classroom. Additionally, these years were of course marked by a pandemic which limited offline interactions, meaning that of the couples which formed during this period we should probably expect a higher than usual proportion to have met online.
The smoothed line also conceals considerable noise: after 2017 the rate dips to 23–24% in the next two surveys before surging nearly 200% to 66% in 2020, followed by a slight drop to 58% in 2021.
Reports of online dating’s rise have been greatly exaggerated
The first thing one should do when confronted by a viral chart is to check if other sources corroborate the data. Sometimes people will point to a recent Pew survey which showed that just 10% of people met their current partner on an online dating site or app (rising to 20% for 18–29s). The problem with stats like this is that they doesn’t distinguish between relationships which began recently or many years ago, whereas the ‘How Couples Meet and Stay Together’ (hereinafter ‘HCMST’) data reflects how many people met online in each respective year.
Another dataset I was able to get my hands on is an American Perspectives Survey, conducted by The Survey Center on American Life in August of 2022, and which like the HCMST used a nationally representative panel. Overall, a similar percentage to that in the Pew survey had met their partner through online dating (11%).
More importantly, this survey also asked not just how but when people met their partners, allowing me to restrict the sample to those who met in recent years for a more appropriate comparison to the HCMST data.
Among those who met in the past year, 26% had met through an online dating site or app. Although this is far from a majority, it did represent a plurality, with the next highest category being ‘through friends or family’ at 23%. This sample contained 112 people, three times as many as those who met in 2020-21 in the HCMST.
Of those who met their partners 1–3 years ago (n = 202), 30% met through online dating, of those who met 3–5 years ago (n = 210), 27% did, and of those who met 5–10 years ago (n = 433), 21% did.
The 2017 HCMST showed about 40% of heterosexuals meeting their partners online in 2017. In the APS, the respondents who met their partners 3–5 years ago would have met between 2017–2019. Since the number of observations in the APS was much higher and since in the HCMST the percentage dropped to a similar one to the APS in the following two years, the APS figures are most likely closer to reality. Moreover, there is no evidence here for the meteoric rise shown in the latest HCMST follow-up survey.
A Swiss study found that the proportion of heterosexual couples meeting online rose from 0% in 1995 to about 25% in 2017–18. Of these, 10% met through dating apps, 7% through dating websites, and another 7% through other online venues. The number of observations for 2017–18 was 413—much higher than for those meeting in 2017 in the HCMST—providing additional evidence that its 2017 data point was also an overestimate.
According to the 2023 Singles in America survey by Match Group, 17.5% of singles met their most recent date through online dating, and 7.7% through social media, for a total of 25.2%.
In the 2022 survey, 16.7% had met through online dating, and 8.9% through social media, for a total of 25.6%. I also managed to dig up the codebooks for 2016 and 2017. In 2016, 23.9% met through online dating, and 3.5% through social media, totalling 27.6%. In 2017, 20% met through online dating, and 6.2% through social media, totalling 26.2%.
It’s worth mentioning that quite a few participants were old and hadn’t dated in a long time, which could lead to an underestimate in the percentage of people meeting online, but once again there doesn’t seem to be any evidence for the exponential rise in internet mediated relationships indicated by the HCMST graph.
You might expect that meeting online skews young, but when it comes to people who met their partners within the past 5 years, the youngest adults are actually the least likely to have. This is likely because it becomes more challenging to meet new people once you’ve left the social bubble of school and begin to drift away from friends, and with less people in your age group remaining single.
In another American Perspectives Survey from 2020, of people who met their partners within a year ago (n = 175), 21.4% met through online dating, of those who met 1–3 years ago (n = 201), 24.2% did. Of those who met within the past 3 years, 18.4% of 18–24s, 20.9% of 25–34s, 31.4% of 35–44s, 18.9% of 45–54s, and 32.8% of 55+s met through online dating.
Another survey of 978 college students conducted in 2023 found that 15% had met their current or most recent partner through a dating app, 7% met through other online venues, and half through school or friends. Only 21% had used a dating app in the past month.
A caveat
One potential concern is that the HCMST figure refers to people who met ‘online’, which is more of an umbrella term than online dating per se, even if it has often been interpreted to mean online dating. This concern may be alleviated somewhat by the fact that of those who met their partner in the past year in the APS survey, only 6% selected ‘other’. For those who met 3–5 years ago, it was just 1%. If people met through another online venue but didn’t feel comfortable selecting online dating, presumably they’d have selected this option.
It might be argued that some may have selected ‘through friends’ if they met through another online venue such as social media. The HCMST question was open-ended, and sometimes their answers covered multiple categories. However, of those in the HCMST who met online in 2017, none of their answers suggested that their online connection was mediated by friends, family, or others, and 97.2% were complete strangers when meeting. Therefore, it’s doubtful that many who met online would’ve selected ‘through friends’ in the APS.
Interestingly, about 25% of those who reported meeting through online dating in the APS also reported being either friends or casual acquaintances with their partners before they began dating. It’s possible that these people met through online dating and got to know each other online before going on a date, but it’s also possible that some met through social media etc. and selected online dating because it was the closest fit.
Verdict
The weight of the evidence points towards a negative verdict. Certainly not if we’re just talking dating apps. Regardless, it’s far from justified to make sweeping conclusions based on such a comically small sample size. This looks like another repeat of the 2018 GSS or 2022 Pew situation whereby the statistics that get quoted most widely aren’t those that are the most accurate, but those with the most viral potential or that fit a popular narrative. This seems like an especially egregious example, though; the next viral statistic might as well be pulled from interviews with four homeless albinos.
People are hasty to embrace information which plays into their anxieties about technology further taking over and atomizing society; about a potential dystopian future where everyone is confined to their metaverse pods. Those who like to blame their dating woes on apps find the notion that most people are meeting online validating; it makes them feel more justified in doing so.
‘Dating apps are real life’ has become a common rejoinder to people who advise trying to meet people in the ‘real world’ instead of relying on dating apps. While they’re certainly a relevant part of the landscape, it’s clear that plenty of people are still managing to socialize and meet people without them. Just because you’re permanently online doesn’t mean everyone else is. In fact, most women have never even touched a dating app. According to the 2022 Pew survey, 62% of men and 46% of women in the 18–29 age bracket had ever used online dating. Even among singles who reported being interested in dating, 67% of men and 38% of women in this age bracket had used online dating in the past year, and only 18% of women were currently using it. I’m aware that a large part of the appeal of dating apps is that they bypass social challenges that come with dating, especially as a male who is still expected to make the first move more often than not—but if there was any doubt, socializing is still important.
It seems that dating apps may have already peaked and are struggling to appeal to Gen Z. People already complain about bots and fake profiles, and I doubt AI will make things any better. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean will turn to in-person interactions more—perhaps social media will increasingly take their place, or people will just date less in general. It remains to be seen if metaverse dating becomes anything more than furries and neckbeards RPing as women. Whatever the implications of more people meeting online may be (though on the whole it seems like relationships beginning online don’t fare any worse), as I’ve established, the pervasive myth of ‘Chad harems’ don’t appear to be among them.
Citations
Rosenfeld, Michael J., Reuben J. Thomas, and Sonia Hausen. 2023. How Couples Meet and Stay Together 2017-2020-2022 combined dataset. [Computer files]. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Libraries. https://data.stanford.edu/hcmst2017
Potarca G. (2020). The demography of swiping right. An overview of couples who met through dating apps in Switzerland. PloS one, 15(12), e0243733. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243733
I mean, it seems like women today don't want to meet men in person, either. So it's a bit of a catch 22.