How much does race matter when dating online? Depends on how old you are, study finds
People looking for dates online are more likely to care about race or ethnicity if they’re over 50 years old, while younger users are more concerned if potential partners have kids, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center.
Researchers found almost a third of adults in the United States had used dating websites or apps like Tinder and Grindr, and that 12% of users found a long-term partner.
The study found that people on dating sites are looking at different things depending on their age, including race and politics.
“Online dating users ages 50 and older are more likely than users ages 18 to 49 to say that it is very important that the profiles they looked at included the person’s race or ethnicity (26% vs. 16%) or their political affiliation (21% vs. 12%),” Pew said.
“Younger users, on the other hand, are more likely than older users to say that it was very important to them that profiles they came across included whether the person had children (48% vs. 37%).“
Most of the people who used dating sites and apps, almost 60%, said they had a positive experience overall, but the survey also dives into the downsides of these sites, including harassment, unsolicited explicit messages and images, and prejudice.
Young women are a particular target for harassment.
“Six-in-ten female online dating users ages 18 to 34 say someone via a dating site or app continued to contact them after they said they were not interested, while 57% report that another user has sent them a sexually explicit message or image they didn’t ask for,” the report states.
“Other negative interactions are more violent in nature: 19% of younger female users say someone on a dating site or app has threatened to physically harm them – roughly twice the rate of men in the same age range who say this,” according to Pew.
Harassment is also more common for LGBT people on dating apps than straight people, including being threatened physically or called an offensive name.
“Fully 56% of LGB users say someone on a dating site or app has sent them a sexually explicit message or image they didn’t ask for, compared with about one-third of straight users (32%).”
The study also found most users, 71%, say people “lie about themselves to appear more desirable.”
Half the people using these apps think it’s common for other users to set up fake accounts to try to scam others.
