Study finds Tinder users aren't just using it to get laid

There is a widely-held belief out there that Tinder is supposed to be the one-stop shopping place to go to get yourself some easy action. Just pull your phone out and start swiping.

However, that might not be the case. Depending on what you’re looking for in your dating apps, that could be taken as good or bad news.

Tinder's on-site sociologist Jessica Carbino (Who knew Tinder had an on-site sociologist?) looked over a mountain of data that was acquired from a pair of surveys Tinder conducted to compare their users with offline daters. The surveys were filled out by over 7,000 Tinder users, and 2,500 offline daters, between the ages of 18-36.

What she concluded was that people swiping right and left were more likely to be trying to find a committed relationship than their offline contemporaries. When it comes down to specifics, she said that people on Tinder were doing a better job of narrowing down potential daters by asking them several questions after they started talking. She also found, somehow, that Tinder users are five percent more likely to tell their partners “I love you,” during their first year of dating.

The survey also pointed out that 30 percent of men who aren’t using an online source say that it’s “challenging to commit.” In comparison, only nine percent of Tinder users said they find it hard to stay in a committed relationship. According to The New York Times, those percentages were similar for women.

Carbino theorizes that’s because online daters are able to see who’s on the market, as opposed to offline daters just visualizing it. “When you are dating online, you actually have a very clear idea of what the marketplace is like,” she said. “You are able to have a visual idea of the pool in front of you, whereas the people who aren’t dating online are simply speculating as to what the pool may be like.”

Like the analysis from nearly every freakin’ study you’ve ever read about, a fellow researcher (in this case, Jennifer Lundquist, a sociologist at UMass) said more studies were needed to determine the accuracy of these surveys. She noted that there’s no longer a stigma around online dating, meaning that the offline dating group could be skewed, and also said that it’s possible Tinder is just trying to rehab their hook-up image—it was Tinder’s surveys after all.

However, for now, it seems like even in an era where technology makes most everything easier, if you want to try and get some you have to put in your own work. Just like your father, and your father’s father, and your father’s father’s father. We’re getting closer, though.