Contemporary Dating Quiz

As an appetizer for the Animas Coaching session on Supporting Your Clients with Healthy Dating on 26th March, Rachel has prepared a quick quiz for you. Please treat the purpose of this quiz as to have a bit of fun guessing the answers, not to get them right by researching them!

The answers will be provided during the session, and posted here a little later. The purposes of the quiz are:

(a) to provide you with the opportunity to think about the stats first so it’ll be easier to take in the information during the presentation

(b) to highlight where public perceptions of dating differ from the facts

(c) to give you an accurate big picture (using the best data) about contemporary dating to inform your coaching.

Where UK data is available, this has been used, but most data collected on dating is from the US.[1]

  1. What proportion of online US daters report overall positive experiences?
  2. What year was the first lonely hearts advertisement?
  3. When was the first dating app launched and which one was it?
  4. What percentage of adults used an online dating service in the UK in May 2024?
  5. What percentage of (a) straight and (b) LGB adults in the US have ever used a dating app?
  6. What percentage of UK adults over 55 are currently single?
  7. What percentage of UK adults between 18-24 are single?
  8. In what year did meeting online become the most popular way to meet for new heterosexual US couples?
  9. What percentage of 25-34s in the UK met their current partner online in 2024?
  10. What % of US online daters found dates that led to exclusive romantic relationships?
  11. Are you more or less likely to be looking for marriage and children if you date online (US data)?
  12. What percentage of UK Hinge users are (a) female and (b) male (all orientations combined)?

 

[1] All data is for both straight and gay orientations combined with a range of ethnic backgrounds represented,  unless otherwise specified. There is very little data yet available on bisexual, non-binary, trans and other minority daters within gender and orientation categories.

 

 Answers to Dating Quiz

  1. 53% reported somewhat or very positive dating experiences (Pew Center, 2023)
  2. 1695
  3. 2009 Grindr (for gay men), followed by 2012 Tinder (which began for heterosexual dating)
    1959 was first technology-assisted matchmaking (using an IBM computer)
    1994 was the first website; Match.com launched in 1995
    Timeline of online dating
    History of Match
  4. 10% of adults = roughly 3.8 million Ofcom Online Nation Report (2024)
  5. (a) 28% straight (b) 51% same-sex ever used a dating app. These include ALL adults, not just single adults (Pew Center, 2023)
  6. 32% of over 55s are single (includes those who are divorced, separated, widowed and simultaneously not in a new relationship) (YouGov, 2022)
  7. 60% of 18-24s in UK are single (YouGov, 2022)
  8. 2013, extrapolating from the longitudinal datasets from 2012 and 2017. In 2017, 39% of new heterosexual couples met online. How Couples Meet and Stay Together survey 2017
    Rosenfeld, M. J., Thomas, R. J., & Hausen, S. (2019). Disintermediating your friends: How online dating in the United States displaces other ways of meeting. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(36), 17753-17758.
    Rosenfeld, M. J., & Thomas, R. J. (2012). Searching for a mate: The rise of the Internet as a social intermediary. American Sociological Review, 77(4), 523-547.
  1. 21% of 25-34s in the UK met their current partner online (YouGov, 2022)
    Note: Unlike the Rosenfeld data presented earlier, this data is not for new couples who met in 2023 but all couples, so includes older people who have been together a long time who couldn’t have met online. This means it’s not a fair comparison of online v offline for anyone who didn’t have the choice to date online when they started looking for a partner. Anyone who is about 34 now could have used Tinder from age 21 (when it started in 2012). Therefore this data is only a fair comparison of online and offline for people roughly over 34. (Or if you think 18 year-olds would’ve used Tinder when it first started, despite the stigma and fears about safety, you can adjust this estimate.) I therefore only use it for the youngest two categories.
  2. 39% of online daters have married or been in a committed relationship with someone they first met through a dating site or app  (Pew Center, 2020)
  3. More likely to want marriage and children:
    Rosenfeld (2017): Get married more quickly
    Danielsbacka (2020): More likely to want children
    Potarca (2020): More likely to want to move in and have children
    Rosenfeld, M. J. (2017). Marriage, choice, and couplehood in the age of the internet. Sociological Science, 4, 490-510. Longitudinal data show that despite getting married more quickly, meeting online does not predict higher levels of couple breakup. Meeting online (and particularly meeting through online dating websites) predicts faster transitions to marriage for heterosexual couples. 3,009 American couples followed for 6 years, from 2009 to 2015 from How Couples Meet and Stay Together surveys, HCMST.
    Danielsbacka, M., Tanskanen, A. O., & Billari, F. C. (2020). Meeting online and family-related outcomes: evidence from three German cohorts. Journal of Family Studies, 1-26. Sample size n = 8177 from three birth cohorts between 2009 and 2016. Only 10% of younger adults had met their partners online in 2015–2016 (Danielsbacka et al., 2019).
    Potarca G (2020) The demography of swiping right. An overview of couples who met through dating apps in Switzerland. PLoS ONE 15(12): e0243733. Data from 2018 Family and Generations Survey, Sample size n = 16,815.
  4. Hinge 53% female 47% male – only one where more female than male; Bumble 41% female, 59% male; Tinder 39% female; 61% male; although there are 50 gender and orientation categories; Ofcom Online Nation Report (2024)
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