Dating Apps More Popular than Websites
The constant migration from surfing websites with a computer to using a smartphone app to tell us what we want and keep us connected to friends has extended to online dating, according to a new study.
Flurry, a mobile analytics company, published a report that reveals dating apps are now used more often than the websites of those same dating services. A year ago, dating website usage for subscribers averaged 8.4 minutes per day, while dating app usage was at 3.7 minutes. But in June 2011, dating apps had overtaken website usage: 8.4 minutes per day for apps and 8.3 minutes for websites.
The advantage of a dating app is clear: Users can access their profile and update from anywhere with their phone, whereas website users only check the website when they are home. The study showed that website users usually spent those 8 minutes per day in large chunks, but app users opened their dating app over 5 times a day for only 1.5 minutes per session.
The study also showed that a larger portion of smartphone owners use dating apps than Internet users are using dating websites. Approximately 13 percent of all Internet users have signed up with a dating website, but 17 percent of all app users have used a dating app.
To top it off, dating apps are a growing industry. The number of dating app users is growing faster than the number of people using all apps. Total app user growth is growing by 125 percent each year, but dating app use has grown 150 percent in the same period.
It's no surprise because electronic dating is big business. A separate study estimated that 1 in 5 single people (who have access to the Internet) are using a dating site. And 17 percent of recent marriages happened thanks to dating websites.
