A Statistical Insight Into The Future Of Dating Apps

The recent pandemic has pushed everyone off the edge and forced us to change our lifestyles. With the global house arrest, industries have had to evolve and adapt to new virtual trends. These trends have affected our professional and personal lives in many ways. With everyone confined into their homes, new ways of finding love and companionship are evolving rapidly. Even though dating apps have been there for quite some time, pandemic has definitely played a crucial role in the growing adoption of dating apps. 

According to a Statista report in April 2020, prior to the pandemic, U.S. dating app users showed a growth rate of 13 percent and over 31 percent during the pandemic. However, regardless of the pandemic, the U.S. has been one of the largest markets for the dating apps industry. Tinder, for example, has a strong dating network of 7.86 million users in the U.S. alone. Bumble is chasing the same market with a dating network of 5.03 million users.

Moving further, you will find a few trends supported by facts and latest dating app statistics. If you are a developer looking forward to expanding your industry knowledge or you are planning to build one of the best online dating apps, check out the rest of the blog!

Top 5 Secrets To Making The Best Dating App

Well, to answer the question of what is online dating we have to first understand how dating apps work. At the heart of it, most dating apps use geolocations of the users to show them nearby users registered on the same app. Whereas, for the dating bit, the best dating apps use algorithms based on user preferences, sexuality, age, gender, etc to personalize their profile and similarly find compatibility with other profiles.

Currently, many new trending dating apps like Tinder or Bumble are providing free and premium services for users. To understand what to expect from online dating apps, you should have an insight into a few trending features. Moving forward, you will find some of the features current dating apps are offering in the market:

• Tinder’s premium feature “Tinder Plus” gives you unlimited likes, Passport to change your geolocation to anywhere in the world, Rewind to find accidental unlikes, etc;
• Bumble is a female-centric dating app. Even after the match, only women can make the first move on Bumble;
• Moreover, Bumble only allows 24 hours for matched users to interact. Otherwise, the match gets expired. However, free users can extend the match once for 24 hours more;
• Grindr is a social networking app designed for LGBTQ users specifically;
• With Grindr XTRA subscription, users can filter out profiles without images or offline profiles.

What Can You Expect From The Future Of Dating Apps?

Currently, apps like Bumble, Tinder, Happn among other dating apps are working on adding new features for the extra safety of their users. Expectedly, the future of dating app users will be more secured against perverts, blackmailers, and stalkers.

If we take an example of the Covid Lockdown, Even though the pandemic increased distance between us and other humans, dating apps have used the opportunity to evolve. To adapt, Bumble added “Virtual Dating” as one of the latest online dating future trends. Virtual dating refers to setting up the environment and dating experience through the video call. Bumble saw a growth of 93 percent audience between March 13 to March 27.

Now, let’s discuss these Top 6 online dating trends in detail:

1. More Diversity in Online Dating Future Trends 

Compared to today, dating apps in the future will be more inclusive of different race, gender and sexual orientation. Currently, most of the dating apps focus on only male and female as the two genders. 

Now, let's go through a few points to understand how dating apps are trying to adapt diversity:

• Dating apps like Tinder are working to ensure enhanced safety and privacy of LGBTQ+ users. Tinder is working on a feature that will automatically hide LGBTQ+ users from servers in areas where LGBTQ communities are banned. This step is taken to ensure the safety of Tinder user from local laws and harassment;
• More LGBTQ+ centric dating apps like Grindr and HER are being developed and gaining popularity in the app market;
• HER, a LGBTQ+ dating app, offers 17 sexualities and 18 gender identities to be more inclusive towards communities like non-binary, agender, two-spirits among all.

Even though dating apps are evolving and becoming more user-friendly for the LGBTQ+ community, there are still plenty of hurdles in these apps that can be improved. 

One of the major issues LGBTQ+ community face is the stigma and conservatism attached to its people in current society. Therefore, the primary responsibility of these dating apps should be to ensure the safety of its uses in terms of user privacy and profile management. 

2. Big Privacy Walls in Future Dating Apps 

One of the major concerns dating app users face is the threat to privacy. In many incidents, fake profiles have been used to spam or blackmail people over dating apps. Therefore, the need to save users from such incidents occurred. Dating apps like Tinder, Bumble, Happn, etc provide a verification feature to fight such threats. To get a verified profile, you are supposed to submit multiple pictures with your face clearly visible. It is done to ensure that existing profiles on dating apps are authentic. 

Now, let’s understand what other steps dating apps are taking for an improved safety of users:

• Dating apps use algorithms to detect celebrity pictures.So unless, a profile is made and verified by the celebrity themselves, dating apps will take it down
• Dating apps are removing fake profiles regularly to make original profiles available for you to like;
• The reporting feature of every dating app is used to alert the app developers about any unacceptable behavior, fraud, harassements, etc.

As the competition between various dating apps get tough, every dating app is innovating new ways to offer a seamless experience to its users and retain them.

3. Artificial Intelligence More Involved In The Future Of Dating Apps

With the implementation of Artificial Intelligence technology in the online dating future trends, the virtual dating experience will get smarter. AI will utilize the user data and customize app UI to display profiles with high probability of matches. AI is helpful for dating apps in ways like:

• Displaying profiles with a higher match probability;
• Tracking User behavior and preferences to provide a more personalized experience;
• Detecting fake profiles through AI algorithms like Image Recognition;
• Enabling AI supported customized responses to help users in making the first move;
• Detecting unauthorized activities or spam behavior by user profiles like bulk liking, advertising profiles, etc.

Adoption of AI will ensure dating apps in building a good relationship with its users. As users will feel safer from possible spam profiles.

4. Focus On Making IRL Connection with Top Trending Dating Apps

Many dating apps users are there because they lack the confidence of connecting with people in real-life. Therefore, they get onboard on the best free dating apps and find it an easier way to connect with people. There are various reasons behind this kind of approach by users like:

• social anxiety;
• fear of rejection;
• lack of confidence, etc. 

The future of online dating is also focusing on such kinds of users as they are the majority. It is advised for app developers to keep these online dating future trends in mind while building or modifying dating apps.

5. Future Of Online Dating Might Be Free From Fake Profiles

The main issue currently on dating apps is fake profiles. Many users create fake profiles to lure other users into sending pictures or just to abuse them. However, dating apps are creating new policies with time to make sure that the future of online dating trends is secured against such incidents.

6. New Trending Dating Apps To Fight Against Body-Shaming

Bullying and body shaming are some of the major issues that have taken over the dating world for quite some time. However, modern online dating trends are trying to resolve this issue as much as they can. Top trending dating apps like Tinder or Bumble have policies in place to fight body shaming and bullying to protect its users. 

An Analytical Insight Into Top Trending Dating Apps

Well, these statistics I am going to mention will give you a glimpse into the future of dating apps. Moreover, you will also get an idea of what to expect from online dating in near future. These statistics will focus on the best free dating apps along with premium apps as well. However, most of the dating apps provide free services with extra paid features.

1. As Statista report mentions, 7.86 million users are using Tinder in the U.S. which makes it stand on the top among dating apps;

2. According to Statista, 8 percent of current users belong to the age group of 18-29 compared to 10 percent of 30-44 years old;

3. However, 28 percent and 30 percent users of the age group 18-29 and 30-44 years old, respectively have used dating apps or websites in the past but they are not using them anymore;

4. Overall, 21 percent U.S. based adults have used dating apps in the past but they are not using the same anymore;

5. According to Pew Research survey done for online dating marriage statistics done on the age group 18 to 29-year-olds, 20 percent of them either ended up in a long term relationship or the married;

6. Moreover, A dating app marriage statistics by Pew Research says that 21 percent of LGB adults ended up in marriage or a long term relationship compared to 11 percent Straight people;

7. If we specifically focus on online dating marriage statistics, 12 percent of the dating app users from the U.S. got married or committed in a long term relationship with someone they met on the dating site or app.

Key Takeaways

Before we proceed further and wind up this blog, let’s go through some key points to remember the Future of Dating Apps:

• If we look at dating app marriage statistics, less than 50 percent of users end up in a marriage in the U.S.;
• In the future, how dating apps work will change. Inclusivity and diversity will be a prime focus for market’s best free dating apps 
• New trending dating apps will focus more on user safety by using new techniques and better verification methods;
• Future dating apps will move towards dismantling bullying and body shaming and offer a harassment free user experience

As mentioned earlier, 12 percent dating app users from the U.S. ended in a meaningful relationship. Moreover, it is expected that with time, the percentage of adults looking for meaningful relationships will increase. Now, as an app developer, it might be a golden opportunity to create dating apps focused on more than casual dating or Hook-up approaches.

In the end, trends mentioned above show how safety of users is the most important concern for dating app developers. Therefore, it is important to integrate advanced techniques in future dating apps so provide users a safer experience.

By Manish

Sr. Content Strategist

Meet Manish Chandra Srivastava, the Strategic Content Architect & Marketing Guru who turns brands into legends. Armed with a Masters in Mass Communication (2015-17), Manish has dazzled giants like Collegedunia, Embibe, and Archies. His work is spotlighted on Hackernoon, Gamasutra, and Elearning Industry.

Beyond the writer’s block, Manish is often found distracted by movies, video games, AI, and other such nerdy stuff. But the point remains, If you need your brand to shine, Manish is who you need.