Is Gen Z ghosting on dating apps as companies lay off workers?
Last week, Bumble CEO Whitney Herd told employees in a note that the company had been 'rebuilding' in recent months. In a U.S. securities filing, the company said it would be laying off about one-third of its workforce, or 240 employees.
'Bumble, like the online dating industry itself, is at an inflection point,' Herd wrote. 'The reality is, we need to take decisive action to restructure to build a company that's resilient, intentional, and ready for the next decade.'
It's not the only one.
Match Group, which owns Tinder and Hinge, announced earlier this year it's cutting about 13 per cent of its workforce.
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'I've heard incredible stories of love, companionship, and life-changing relationships made possible through our apps,' CEO Spencer Rascoff said in a LinkedIn post in April. 'But I've also heard frustration — from users searching for real, meaningful matches and expecting more from the experience.'
Dating and relationship coach Nicole Haley told Global News the shift isn't really surprising given the experience some people have on the platforms.
'There's a novelty to go online because it's new and it's kind of exciting,' she said. 'But as soon as they get on, they start to be disheartened with it. They're like, 'Oh, this is a lot harder than I thought.''
But it could be more than just a lack of enjoyment of the apps that's causing the shift, with some studies noting newer generations may have less of an affinity for that kind of dating, plus some may not even be able to sign on.
Fewer members of Gen Z taking to the apps
A study by the Survey Center for American Life found that among Generation Z, the group generally defined as being born between 1997 and 2012, about 56 per cent had a boyfriend or girlfriend in their teen years, compared with 69 per cent for Millennials, 79 per cent for Gen X and 82 per cent for Baby Boomers.
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'I think that what they see about relationships around them is kind of depressing and they see this narrative that it's easy, it's fun, it's cute to connect on dating apps and then they look at their own experiences and probably a lot of their friends and it's quite the opposite,' said Treena Orchard, a researcher and author of Sticky, Sexy, Sad: Swipe Culture and the Darker Side of Dating Apps.
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Orchard, an anthropologist and associate professor at Western University in London, Ont., said youths' experiences, plus looking at the divorce rates of their parents' generation, among other factors in the dating world, could lead to Gen Z feeling relationships might be 'too big of a risk.'
Then there are the concerns around how much data is being given to these companies.
6:34
Gen Z is redefining dating—and it's not what you think
'I think people are pretty hyper-tuned into the possibility of being swindled because it doesn't just happen on dating apps, it happens on every digital platform we have,' Orchard said. 'There is a point where I think a lot of us — myself included — just feel saturated by coercion, by deception, by people trying to sell us things.'
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A 2023 survey conducted by U.S. news outlet Axios and Generation Lab found that, of slightly under 1,000 college and graduate students, 79 per cent use dating apps as little as once a month.
That lack of use by students — many of whom are Gen Z, as the oldest of this generation are nearly 30 — could also be due to their ability to find a relationship within their community.
'They're still embedded in their local communities and institutions where they don't need to look for dating apps to find a romantic partner,' said Jess Carbino, a former sociologist for Tinder and Bumble.
Carbino added that the youngest of Gen Z cannot even access the apps, as some are as young as 13, and most dating apps require a minimum age of 18.
Haley notes, however, that even if people are shifting back to approaching each other to date in person, the phone apps can still be one tool in their toolkit to find the right match.
'I think it's going to take practice and it's going to be practised to handle one's ability to handle discomfort,' she said. 'We have gotten so comfortable without need … to get out of our comfort zone and so that's why we rely on our phones. I think young people don't have that resilience, they need the resilience to handle some form of rejection or disappointment and not give up.'
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