• Nearly 70 percent of Tinder users are either married or in relationships, according to the findings of a new study.
• The study was to gauge the satisfaction of dating app users, and surveyed 1 387 Tinder users.
• A Tinder spokesperson says that the results of the study are skewed, and around 40 percent of its users are looking for long-term relationships.

A new study from a group of academics in the United States found that the majority of users on dating app Tinder are already in relationships, despite the fact that the app is used to build new romances.

Additionally, more than half of respondents (50.3 percent) to the study, Tinder users, said that they do not use the app to meet new people offline. This means that most users of the hook-up platform are happy to have virtual relationships instead of physical ones.

The research, published in June and titled “Finding Intimacy Online” uses a machine learning model to analyse how satisfied users were with online dating on Tinder. It found that increased satisfaction with dating apps was influenced more by age and the reason people use the app, including finding “true love” and casual sexual partners.

Nearly 70 percent of respondents to the study said that they were already married or in a relationship while using the app, however, only 1 387 Tinder users were surveyed. Participants were found through online advertising.

The app has been downloaded more than 530 million times, according to a Tinder spokesperson who contacted NBC News.

The spokesperson says that for this reason, the study is “highly misleading.” Instead, saying that globally 40 percent of Tinder users are looking for long-term relationships, versus 13 percent looking for short term flings. These statistics are based on Tinder’s own data, which is based on options that can be selected by users while on the app itself.

It would be in Tinder’s best interest to continue the narrative that its app can link people with their true loves, or at least with consenting adults interested in the same things. However, authors of the study say that they are seeing more and more people becoming disenfranchised with dating apps.

“There was the sense that they were spending too much time using them as entertainment or to distract themselves from other things,” said Dr Elias Aboujaoude, a co-author of the study and clinical psychiatry professor from Standard Medicine.

“It can be overwhelming, and in some cases, it can lead people to this notion that the grass is always greener on the other side, like there’s always better options out there,” he adds.

This sentiment leads some users to try dating app after dating app, eventually losing hope. Undeterred Tinder continues to launch feature after feature, including a way to run background checks and video verification.

[Image – Photo by Good Faces Agency on Unsplash]