It's been trending this way for years, but seeing it graphed out like this is shocking.
What do you think are the effects of this drastic change?
The last really serious relationship started by meeting at a bar.
It was great because there was no expectations when we first started talking so the conversation was just natural, just two people talking. We exchanged numbers and soon started dating. I really think that it worked was because it was just an accidental meeting and we were both relaxed and had no ulterior motive.
I also think because dating in the wild there are fewer filters and few options, so you go with what you got. They may not be perfect but it's better than sitting around swiping for the perfect person that may not exist.
They may not be perfect but it’s better than sitting around swiping for the perfect person that may not exist.
I actually appreciate having information on personality, background, hobbies and dating intentions up-front, rather than play a guessing game for hours or days.
When I was dating in the late 2000's and early 2010's, I remember adding dates as friends on Facebook, somewhere around the first date, specifically to be able to get a sense of their personality/background/interests, and to show off mine, even for people I met in person.
It wasn't online dating through a dating app, but online presence was still a huge part of the actual process.
Even before that, in the early 2000's, I remember stuff like AIM profiles that could at least link to photo albums that show off things that you've done recently. And even then having always-on broadband Internet, to where we'd be logged into AIM or ICQ, was its own flex.
Yup. I'm an awkward fellow but still have far better results approaching people in bars than on apps. People on apps are constantly pursuing the perfect match (including their perfect match) so everyone is collectively disappointed.
For me, the big question isn't what are the effects, but rather, what is the cause?
I see this as an effect of something else that other effects of could be mistaken as symptoms of this here.
Basically, the destruction of third spaces and public life in general has caused an increasing number of people to find relationships (both romantic and platonic) online because they no longer have the opportunity in their daily life. That, and the increased ease of long distance relationships and meeting people from far away means that people are probably more likely to have the opportunity to fall in love with somebody outside of their tiny corner of the world.
A lot of people here are too young to get it, but work being a captive dating scene for skeezy shameless assholes is a million times worse than online dating.
If anyone is jumping into this thread: ctrl+f "fake". There is a good discussion about the data that you shouldn't miss.
Thanks, yeah that's why I came here. For me though it is that a few percent got together in 1980 / early 80s. Now I vaguely remember the 80s and the "internet" from then. I can't imagine any got together from "online dating" then or the internet overall. Do you have a concept of what "internet" was then?
I think this graph is fake. The way the data is presented is confusing, but the study they are citing doesn't seem to confirm anywhere close to the 60% figure, it seems to be saying 11.5% instead: https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/ICPSR/studies/38873/datasets/0001/variables/W1_Q24_MET_ONLINE?archive=icpsr
This lower figure also seems to line up with other studies: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/02/02/key-findings-about-online-dating-in-the-u-s/
One-in-ten partnered adults – meaning those who are married, living with a partner or in a committed romantic relationship – met their current significant other through a dating site or app.
The graph is branded with the logo of "Marriage Pact", which seems to be a dating app/service targeting college students. Maybe they made it as a form of (deceptive, unethical) advertising? I don't know, reverse image search just shows similarly unsourced social media posts, I can't confirm anything about its origins.
That's totally not it for me. It looks fake, but for me it was when this shit starts. A few percent got together in 1980 / early 80S?! Now I vaguely remember the 80s and the "internet" from then. I can't imagine any got together from "online dating" then or the internet overall. Do you have a concept of what "internet" was then?
but the study they are citing doesn't seem to confirm anywhere close to the 60% figure, it seems to be saying 11.5% instead
I think you've linked the variable of all couples regardless of when they got together. If 11.5% of all couples met online, whether they met in 2023 or 1975, then that doesn't actually disprove the line graph (which could be what percentage of couples who met in that particular year met through each method).
The researchers who maintain the data set you've linked published an analysis of the 2017 data showing that it was approaching 40% towards the most recent relationships being formed, in 2017. I could believe that post-covid, the trends have approached 60%.
It could be that. I'm noticing now that the study I linked has a note about a sampling error they made:
Self-identified LGB adults were oversampled in HCMST 2017, and therefore remain oversampled in subsequent waves (2020, 2022). the weights (W1_WEIGHT_COMBO, W2_COMBO_WEIGHT, and W3_COMBO_WEIGHT) correct for this oversample.
So another possibility is that the data used for the graph is wrong because of a big correlation between sexual orientation and preference for online dating and it was made before this was corrected.
I don't think the figures are intuitively implausible, mostly I'm just bothered by the apparent lack of any way to confirm the authenticity of the graph and its relationship to the source material, or get an authoritative answer to the question of how prevalent online dating is.
One reason to doubt them though, the other article I linked says that as of 2022
About half of those under 30 (53%) report having ever used a dating site or app
Which is the demographic that uses them the most. So it doesn't make sense that more people would have met their current partner through a dating app than have ever used one.
About half of those under 30 (53%) report having ever used a dating site or app
Yes, but that's a bigger denominator, and includes single people, and even those who have never been on a date. The headline question is what percent of couples met through different methods, not what percent of individuals, including those who are not currently in a couple.
So it doesn't make sense that more people would have met their current partner through a dating app than have ever used one.
It could be that a higher percent of couples met online than the percent of people who have ever used online dating. If you have a data set where online dating is literally the only way to meet people, but only half of the people are trying that method, you'd have the situation where 100% of couples met online but only 50% of people have ever tried online dating (this hypothetical is purely to demonstrate the math, not claiming that this is in any way a reflection or the actual data).
It's entirely possible (and I'd argue is likely) that the 53% who have used dating services are more likely to be in couples than the 47% who haven't. And so that larger subset of the 47% would therefore be excluded in the "percent of couples" data.
mostly I'm just bothered by the apparent lack of any way to confirm the authenticity of the graph and its relationship to the source material
The 2019 paper I've linked is authored by the maintainers of the linked data set, and contains a very similar graph with an earlier cutoff (2017 data). I'm sure those authors know their data set. It's just most of their papers using this data is paywalled, and the data is mainly used for other types of analyses.
If I have time I might be able to download the data set from a computer and just map it either naively or by applying the correct weights.
I think the difference is that variable is the entire population of coupled adults. Of course not 60% of all couples met online, but I'd believe 60% of couples that met this year met online.
I’d believe 60% of couples that met this year met online.
I think there's a question of denominator, rather than percentage, involved here.
What happens when you have a pre-online standard of 100 new interactions a year in a population of 100k single-and-looking-to-mingle daters. Then you introduce dating apps, and you've still got the base-load 100 new interactions happening normally, but now you've got apps which allow you to make thousands of interactions a month rather than a hundred a year.
Now a hundred of those power-users on Grinder all start meeting up and fucking online. 100 unique combinations gets you 4950 "couples that met" in a year. Yeah, the "met up" only lasted for the duration of a naked high-five, but its points on the board!
Compare that to 100 couples that meets outside the app, but are doing it at the more stately pace of once-a-month (so, 3 times in 100 days). rather than as fast as they can swipe through the app. 300 unique "met ups" by comparison. Kinda high by historical standards but infintessimal to the ass-slapping orgy of dating the online community allows.
As someone who watches friends on these apps go on dates two or three times a week, but never settle down (because the focus of these apps is hooking up, not settling down, and the system is engineered to keep you engaged and swiping) I put forward the hypothesis that "How Couples Met" isn't seeing a decline in non-app interactions but an enormous surge among a particular rarified group of power users milling their way through the library of potential hook-ups online.
I'd also posit that some number of these hook-ups are purely artificial (bot accounts, catfishing, onlyfans promotions, or other phony profiles) that exist purely to encourage lonely people to engage with the system and don't actually signify human-to-human interactions. As evidence of this, I'd point you to restaurants using dating apps to dupe users into becoming customers.
See, I will agree with you, though not because of your reasoning (which very well might be spotless), but because of the phrase "ass-slapping orgy".
Thankyou for digging past the headlines and showing your findings. No one has the time to do it all the time but together we can.
The collapse of society, visualized.
I don't understand it so it must be bad.
Explain your thesis.
Wrong thread or phone bad?
/c/dataisdepressing
I’m sure off loading the human mating ritual to profit driven companies will have no negative effects on society whatsoever, this definitely isn’t the horrors here to unseen except in the most dystopian of science fiction novels.
Having 4 shades of grey as colors in a colored graph certainly is a choice...
The most distinct 8 colours are of course: Red, Blue, Blue, Black, Grey, Grey, Grey, Grey.
That chart must be made by a dog.
Possibly in order to be readable by color-blind people.
Meeting online seems like the best way to me. Better to date people you have stuff in common with rather than just picking your partners through circumstance.
I first dated online in 1999, and the first woman I dated I ended up marrying and having two kids with, though we divorced in 2017.
I still date online these days, and I prefer it. It allows me to know a little about a person before I waste any time chatting them up, and the things I need to know are things they generally put on their profile. Things like their sexuality (since I am non-binary), their political leaning (I'm socialist), their relationship orientation (I'm polyamorous), whether our values match...you know...important shit. And those early conversations before we ever meet in person are low-key enough that I feel more comfortable with them IRL, something that helps me as an autistic person.
I think the online thing is about to start dropping. The sites are so full of looky-loos who just want to chat and never actually meet in person they're hardly worth the time. I expect as the bot infestation continues to grow, they'll be even less useful.
Also the pandemic is over so people are allowed to meet outside
There is also the enshittification that intentionally make the sites worse and harder to use... I will never in a million years understand why useful features are removed completely other than "the longer you are stuck on the site the more likely you are to pay for premium."
POF used to have a section for you to add tags and a function to search by tags. Completely gone. Not even a premium feature. OKC used to have an additional text entry to elaborate on the questions you answer, now completely gone. "do you believe animals have spirits like people" yes or no.... No, but that makes me sound like an asshole. I don't believe either do, but I can't explain that now... OKC used to let you browse profiles instead of just swipe swipe swipe. Match group bought every successful dating site and absolutely destroyed them to make them all seemingly identical "Tinder 2.0" clones.
I'm not 100% sure on this one, but there aren't even direct messages on OKC at first, just an "intro" and I've seen on women's profiles they say "I read all my intros." There's a tab for intros, so I'm assuming their intros show up there. I'm a guy, I NEVER have had an intro in that tab, but if I happen to stumble on a profile where she sent me an intro it shows up on her profile. Not trying to be sexist, I think they are playing the bullshit game of "men are more desperate and willing to pay so we'll do what we can to make them stuck here longer."
POF is even more of a joke now, they are moving more towards streaming and paid rewards... Fucking streamer profiles "not here to date, just here for the streaming." It's so absurd what happened to online dating.
A lot of people are ok with tinder or hinge, but I need more information about a person I'm not one of those "unga bunga she pretty, lemme smash" types. I need a profile to read...
I'm personally thrilled not to be bound by the recommendations of my friends or family. Or work?! Gross!
People: "Oh hey there Digital Frontier, looking forward to the opportunity" The Permanently Online: "Get out of my swamp!"
I wish there was some granularity to "online." I met my wife on a BBS in 94. It wasn't a dating site, it was a discussion board, and neither of us was looking to hook up with anyone. There are lots of things like that, but I'm guessing dating apps/sites are the biggest component.
The number of people that met on BBS would probably not even register as a line on that graph, lol. You are a rare gem, good sir or madam.
It doesn't split, but I'd guess 99.9% of those online meets are dating apps (rather than other ways of meeting online).
That's kind of sad, not because there's any one way people should meet, but because meeting people is now mostly mediated through for profit companies.
I want to know which couples were meeting online in 1980.
Nerds.
Bulletin board systems (BBS) go back to 1980. Men have tried everything to get laid since the dawn of humanity. It checks out.
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