Study Shows Just How Much Dating Apps Have Destroyed Other Real Life Encounters

Before Tinder, Hinge, and Bumble, the rhythm of life led you to your soulmate. Sometimes, it was through a friend, social gatherings, parties, even workplaces. Men used to unashamedly approach women in public places.

We grew up on social media, which, ironically, made most people anti-social, and dating apps have replaced the traditional ways of meeting. According to a resurfaced study called "How Couples Meet and Stay Together," unique encounters will soon be a thing of the past. The graph below demonstrates how most couples in the U.S. meet online. Data shows that before the rise of social media, most people met through friends, family, work, bars, and schools.

Of course, the majority of us already suspected this. But seeing a visual of just how many people meet through screens is pretty jarring.

An X user made a good point about these findings: "Having no trust circle to vet your dates is going to be absolutely terrible and lead to a lot more abuse," he wrote. Sure, murders via Tinder are rare, but is it worth the risk? Sadly, even young people today meet their friends through the internet.

"For couples who met in 1990 or before, the percentage who met online was essentially zero," the authors noted in Searching for a Mate: The Rise of the Internet as a Social Intermediary. "Between 1995 and 2005, there was exponential growth in the proportion of respondents who met their partners online, reaching what appears to be a plateau at approximately 22%."

They continued, "For heterosexual couples who met in 2009, the Internet was the third most likely way of meeting, after the intermediation of friends, and approximately tied with bars, restaurants, and other public places. With the rise of the Internet as a way couples meet in the past few years, and the concomitant decline in the central role of friends, it is possible that the Internet could eventually eclipse friends as the most influential way Americans meet their romantic partners."

Not only is that unromantic and sad, but dating apps have also demonstrated how much it has damaged finding partners by influencing people to think they have unlimited options.
Let's not forget how dating apps also seem to attract the worst people. A 2023 survey found that about half of 1,300-some Tinder users are looking for entertainment and flings. Stanford Medicine researchers also revealed their unsettling findings: More than half of Tinder users are taken. 65.3% of users admitted to being "in a relationship" or married.

Given how awful these dating apps are, it's no wonder why one of our top-performing articles was on finding a husband without the use of Tinder, Hinge, or Bumble.

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