Millennials draw constant criticism, be it for their entitlement, so-called money mismanagement and desire for easy and “free money“, or killing Applebee’s in cold blood. And then there’s their phone addiction, which even spills into their personal and sexual relationships. Do Millennials ever lock eyes across a crowded room, or are they too busy staring at the dating apps on their phones? Would Millennials rather hook up than settle down? Can their shortened attention spans handle long-term relationships?
Well, we surveyed 3,500 Millennials for their take on dating, hookups, and why they’re really using apps like Tinder and Bumble. As it turns out, Millennials are pretty traditional.
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METHODOLOGY
We conducted an email survey of college students across various campuses in the United States, receiving nearly 5,000 complete responses. The survey first asked respondents to check boxes next to the dating apps they use or to write in any app not provided. The 3,500 respondents who indicated using at least one of the provided choices, wrote in the name of a specific app not listed, or indicated that they were not currently using a dating app but named specific dating apps they had used in the past, made up the base of dating app users for our analysis. If a respondent indicated use of multiple apps, they were included in the analysis for each app they listed.
To gain insight into why Millennials use dating apps, we asked respondents to rank seven reasons: finding friends, ego boost, casual dating, boredom, love, hookups, and nudes. We found the overall percentage using dating apps for boredom, ego boosts, love, and hookups by considering just the percentage of people who ranked each as their main reason. To identify which apps have the most users seeking hookups and sending nudes, we considered all respondents who chose those as one of their top two reasons. We also asked users how they prefer to meet potential dates, giving them four options to choose from, and found the percent that chose dating apps.
For more statistics on Millennial dating habits, see Swipe Right for Love.
