When Match.com first launched in 1995, many users were wary about meeting strangers off of the Internet. The popularity of online dating steadily grew over the years, though, with the concept becoming more mainstream after 2013 when Tinder launched its famous “swipe” mechanism. Now it’s very common to find a love interest online. Today, one in 10 people with partners say they met their current partner on a dating site or app. That number is significantly higher for the lesbian, gay, and bisexual community: one in four partnered LGB adults say they met their current partner online.

But evidence suggests that young people aren’t using online dating services to find love as much as recent generations have. Eighty percent of Gen Zers say they don’t use dating apps at all. “The Tinder model is dead with many young people,” said Nichi Hodgson, author of The Curious History of Dating. “They don’t want to swipe any more.” Instead, young people are making romantic matches on platforms that weren’t specifically designed for love. Rather than posting on dating apps, they’re hanging out in online spaces that are focused on a shared interest. “People have always bonded over shared interests, but it’s been given a digital spin with these online communities,” said professor Luke Brunning of the University of Leeds.

Popular online places for people to meet include hobby-based apps such as Strava, a fitness app with 135 million users, and Letterboxd, whose community of movie lovers grew by 50 percent last year. Video games, especially online role-playing games like World of Warcraft, are also popular with singles looking for love. One gamer who proposed to his fiancee in the game said, “I was able to build a lot more of a connection with people I meet in gaming than I ever was able to in a dating app.” Of course, there is a downside to using general-interest apps to look for love: Dating apps are upfront about welcoming romantic attention, but people on hobby apps don’t always want to be hit on.

Questions:

1. Why are many young people not using dating apps, and what online services are they turning to instead?
2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of looking for romance through online communities rather than dating apps?

Source: Fiona Macdonald, “Dating Apps Could Be in Trouble — Here’s What Might Take Their Place,” BBC News, February 13, 2025.