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What drives the on-line dating phenomenon? © Icqurimage 2005 Do dating site advertisements seem difficult to avoid? Everywhere you go there appear to be
advertisements to find a date, romantic dalliance or adult partner. Dating site ads target magazines, newspapers,
web pages and of course those endless sponsored ad ware pop-ups on your
computer screen. So how much money is the
on-line dating market really worth, exactly how many dating sites are there,
and what is it that lures people to this still growing craze? Icqurimage investigated.
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Cynics argued as long ago as 1996 that no one would use on-line
dating as it was impossible to see or to talk to a prospective partner. This forecast was proved spectacularly
wrong. Convenience is King, and the
Internet is the King of Kings. The new
fashion of web cam dating sites has again revolutionised the industry,
promising renewed growth. This is the
tip of the bud of new growth within E-dating spurred by new technologies. IWantU, one of the industry’s major players, are
planning an SMS-based service utilizing GPS tracking technology in Europe, a
service in which subscribers with more-advanced cell phones can search for database
members who are near to hand.
IWantU founder Bill Maher has ten years of experience in
the industry and an uncanny feel for the future, “People now are trusting the
Internet for matchmaking purposes. I don’t believe our kids are going to meet
and get married the same way in which we got married and we met. Their
lifestyle is going to be completely different. No one has the time to date
anymore. People are working, always taken by their duties. The average person
works 50 hours a week, drives home and is tired. No one wants to go out or has
the energy to go out. Some people work on Saturdays and Sundays as well, so
where’s the time for a relationship? I think the solution is online.”
Whilst the scale, popularity and lucrative nature of the
on-line dating revolution is unquestionable, Icqurimage wanted to know if
customers really were pleased with their on-line dating service, and the
hitherto unprecedented access to potential partners that these services
provide. A questionnaire was sent to
1,000 men who subscribe to a wealthy social networking group, and also to 1,300
models. Although this is without doubt a
survey which is heavily biased towards society’s more attractive and affluent quartile,
many individuals kindly took the time and trouble to complete a questionnaire
designed to provoke quick unconscious responses. Icqurimage asked why these men and women
really use on-line dating sites. Which
ones do they use, and how successful are they in finding partners on-line? Is their use of on-line dating sites for the
purposes of curiosity, meeting, and sex or just for finding electronic pen
pals? We are sure that you will agree
that the findings are as interesting as they are surprising...
The first point of interest is that men and women vary in
the frequency with which they visit dating sites. Most men who completed the survey were
current users, and more than half said that they had visited a dating site
within the past few days. In contrast the
women who answered were more infrequent visitors to dating sites, almost half
reporting that they had not used a dating site within the past month.
Around a third of men and women visited dating sites as a
form of recreational fun, and more than half the men and women surveyed reported
using dating sites in order to satisfy their curiosity. At this point the respective goals of men
and women started to diverge. Whilst two
thirds of men used dating sites so that they could meet people, only a third of
women used them so that they could meet potential partners. Contrary to popular gender stereotypes, twice
as many men used dating sites for chat rooms as did women. Although 40% of men and 30% of women used
dating sites to search for partners, only 20% of men and scarcely any women
reported using dating sites passively so that they could receive mail from
potential suitors.
Dramatic differences between men and women began to emerge
when we asked how many messages respondents typically received per week on
dating sites. A third of men claimed to
receive few if any, and 80% of men received fewer than five messages per
week. In contrast only a quarter of women received
fewer than five messages a week, and almost half claimed to receive fifty
messages or more per week in their Inbox. In the on-line
mating game men clearly appear to be the hunters, and women the hunted. It was interesting to see that even amongst a
population of attractive lady models, women fell into two populations - the much
desired, and the less desired. Exactly
what cues on a dating profile result in a third of models receiving a modest
number of messages, and half finding their inboxes inundated is unclear. Certainly it isn’t because they are
unattractive.
Icqurimage then asked what the primary objectives of
on-line dating were. Around a third of
men and women said that they use dating sites to find friends, whilst only a
small proportion of men (22%) and women (13%) claimed to use dating sites to
find partners. Whilst 16% of women
reported using a dating site to find a husband, no men claimed to seek a wife
on-line. Around a third of men and women
used on-line dating sites to find companionship, although surprisingly, more
men (60%) than women (40%) used on-line dating sites to find actual dates. Whilst only a third of women used dating
sites to find like-minded sexual partners, whilst a resounding 85% of men were
on-line looking for sex, another dramatic difference in reported behaviour. Clearly on-line dating communities serve a
spectrum of social needs that go far beyond just sex and dating.
When users were asked how many dates they typically
achieved on-line a month, the survey’s findings again suggested two
populations. Whilst one fifth of women
typically dated at least every other day, and almost a third found time for at
least six dates a month, around a third of models found only one or two dates a
month, whilst one in five did not date at all, whether by choice or by default. Half the men who responded claimed that they
were unsuccessful in finding any dates at all, whilst a third (37%) typically
found only one or two dates on-line per month.
Only a small proportion of men (15%) were able to find three or more dates
on-line a month.
Now for the key question.
Respondents were asked if they were satisfied with their on-line dating
experiences. More than half the men and
a third of the women who responded were disappointed or unsatisfied with their experiences. Of the remaining men, 41% were “fairly
satisfied”, and only 7% expressed a high degree of satisfaction. In contrast 21% of women were “fairly
satisfied” with their experiences, whilst 42% expressed a high degree of satisfaction
with on-line dating. Clearly when it
comes to on-line dating, it’s a woman’s world.
The age range of those who responded was determined, and
the age of the women was on average a few years younger than those of the
men. For both men and women there
appeared to be two distinct groups, the over 35’s and the under thirties, with
very few from either gender within the 31-35 age group. This suggests that there was no dramatic age
bias in the study, although on-line dating appears most popular for women within
the 22-25 and over 35 age groups, and for men in their twenties and late
thirties.
Match.com appeared to be by far the most popular dating
site for women, with almost half the women who responded claiming to use the
site. Friend Finder and Udate were also
widely used by women, although these were far less popular than Match.com. In contrast a third of men used Match.com and
40% used Friend Finder, whilst more than half of those surveyed used its adult
derivative, Adult Friend Finder (AFF).
Whilst most of the men questioned used adult (i.e. sexually-orientated)
variants of popular dating sites (e.g. Adultmatch, Udate, AFF), most of the women
did not. Intriguingly whilst 85% of men
reported using more than one on-line dating site, only 20% of women had done
so, suggesting that women were more focused in their use of dating sites,
whilst men were spreading their interest as widely as possible in order to
maximise their chances of finding a partner.
Whilst not definitive, the Icqurimage questionnaire
suggests some intriguing patterns in the use of dating sites. Men use dating sites principally to find
sexual opportunities, are much more likely to use adult variants of such dating
sites, and are also more frequent and more persistent in their visits on-line
to find partners. Men are the hunters within
the on-line dating community, and it is not unusual for women to log-on once a
week to find that their mail boxes are full.
Most men in contrast received relatively few communications, solicited
or otherwise. Only one fifth of males
were prolific in their success in finding partners on-line, in contrast to
three-quarters of the women surveyed. This
fits neatly with the alpha male model of human reproduction, where the most
physically attractive and socially successful
men have a near monopoly of sexual partners. Clearly the Icqurimage survey reveals that major
patterns in Internet dating are emerging which will give psychologists and
designers much food for thought.
Meanwhile on-line dating is still very much in its infancy, and rather
than representing another passing social trend, it may become the way in which
most relationships are formed.