More than a third of young people in Germany – in this case we are talking about 16 to 29 year olds – currently use online dating services.
This corresponds to a number of around 4.2 million people.
This is the result of a recent survey by the digital association Bitkom.
It is well known that a not inconsiderable proportion of this age group can be found on campus.
Oliver Zöllner, Professor of Media Research, International Communication and Digital Ethics at the Stuttgart Media University, even estimates that around 80 percent of students search the Internet for their true love.
“Online dating is now an established practice among students,” he says.
He only has to go through the rows in the lecture hall once and can then read from the faces of the students when there has been a hit ("match").
According to Bitkom, most of the people in the young target group, namely 76 percent, used an online dating agency or dating site such as Parship, Elitepartner or eDarling to flirt.
Dating with comfort
Dating apps like Tinder, Lovoo and Bumble came in second (69 percent).
Compared to 15 years ago, online dating has become "a lot less shameful," he says.
It used to be “almost frowned upon” when someone placed search ads.
But online dating is now quite normal among students, says Zöllner, who, in addition to the Institute for Digital Ethics, also heads the university radio in Stuttgart and is always surprised at how popular the topic of dating is, both for empirical research work and for radio reports by students.
Nina Buch, then a business law student at the University of Bayreuth, also used Tinder in her first semester and met her current boyfriend through the app.
"I downloaded it mainly to find contacts at the university," says the 21-year-old.
That certainly served its purpose, because even if not every single person tinkered around her, she still found a lot of familiar faces from the university in the suggested profiles.
The reasons for Tindering or Bumblen can be very different: “In general, it is very convenient to just leaf through single profiles like in a catalog or when going shopping.
The search for the ever better match is really electrifying, especially at the beginning,” says Zöllner.
"And students are just now in an experimental phase and use such apps for casual dating and for occasional sex." But of course there is also the serious search for a partner.
Online dating has advantages and disadvantages
This is also confirmed by a survey by the Münster University of Applied Sciences on the subject of online dating, which was carried out by Nastasia Lehmann, a social work student, as part of a university project.
Around 1300 students were asked about their dating behavior between the first lockdown in March 2020 and the nationwide corona emergency brake in April 2021.
Among other things, the result was that the need for a stable partnership among students increased, especially during the pandemic, and was therefore also the main motivator for online dating, which more than half of all respondents used.
However, 87 percent of all respondents were also of the opinion that the digital path could only very inadequately replace getting to know each other in person.
“Online dating was already booming before the pandemic and has become part of everyday life for many people.
However, the desire for permanent partnerships and the opportunities for meetings in real life have increased,” says Lehmann.
Not only because of the corona pandemic, but also because of the negative experiences that many have had in the meantime.
For example, that often nothing becomes of acquaintances that are made online.
"The longing for personal meetings and physical presence is simply not replaced by online dating," Lehmann continues.
Standard flirting instead of individuality
Therefore, the good old lecture hall, the student council party at the end of the semester or the rustically furnished shared kitchen as a meeting place for student couples have not been completely overtaken by algorithms.
Still.
After all, what happens when the younger age groups, who follow the current students, “unlearn” how to flirt?
Make eye contact, have the courage to speak to someone personally, come up with interesting questions to meet, even at the risk of being embarrassed.
"Someone who spends a lot of time on Tinder & Co. may get used to going from date to date with a kind of checklist and working through the expected standard questions almost mechanically," says Zöllner.
As a result, however, the magic of the uniqueness of each person is lost a bit, because you exist as a kind of exchangeable data set and you have to ask yourself every time whether the person opposite doesn't have three other dates on the same day that he or she has exactly the same asks questions.
So if you grow into this anonymous flirting behavior, where individuality doesn't play such a big role because five other Tinder profiles could be waiting around the corner, your attitude towards flirting will of course experience fundamental changes.
In any case, Nina Buch sums up that you can count yourself lucky if person X happens to use the same dating app.
The fact that she has been with her boyfriend and former Tinder date for more than two years sounds more like a happy isolated case.