Based of a survey of 50,000 participants by Snap Interactive, the company behind the AreYouInterested dating site and mobile application has discovered that four out of five single people prefer using smartphones to get dates rather than a typical online dating site. In addition, further data stated that users of mobile dating applications were over 60 percent more likely to hook-up with mobile dating compared to sites like Match.com or PlentyofFish. However, mobile dating applications are usually free while the majority of online dating sites have a monthly fee attached.
According to the data, the most active cities across the world for mobile dating applications include Hong Kong, Los Angeles, London, New York and Melbourne. Users of mobile dating apps typically look at a minimum of 20 profiles per day and 47 percent of the AreYouInterested user base is between the ages of 18 to 25. The most popular use of mobile dating apps is the browsing function and sending private messages is the second most popular. Specifically through the AreYouInterested application, nine conversations are started each minute through the app, each person typically sends about five messages per day and over 600 profiles are viewed every minute.
According to a recent article in the New York Times, mobile dating is becoming the preferred method to meeting potential dates among young people because the speed at which meetings occur is much faster than a traditional online dating site. Location is also used when finding a potential match and users of mobile dating applications are often scanning through multiple profiles to locate someone that’s both attractive and nearby. However, many applications have extended privacy controls that set restrictions on who can view the profile as well as masking the location of the user. Traditional online dating sites are finding about 10 to 30 percent of users are utilizing the corresponding mobile application to schedule dates.