Open AccessDo young dating app users and non-users differ in mating orientations?
Author(s) -
Juan Ramón Barrada,
Ángel Castro,
Elena Fernández del Río,
Pedro J. Ramos-Villagrasa
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0246350
Subject(s) - casual , term (time) , sexual orientation , mating , romance , psychology , resource (disambiguation) , stereotype (uml) , orientation (vector space) , mobile apps , demography , social psychology , computer science , biology , world wide web , zoology , mathematics , computer network , physics , materials science , geometry , quantum mechanics , sociology , psychoanalysis , composite material
In recent years, dating apps have changed the way people meet and communicate with potential romantic and/or sexual partners. There exists a stereotype considering that these apps are used only for casual sex, so those apps would not be an adequate resource to find a long-term relationship. The objective of this study was to analyze possible individual differences in the mating orientations (short-term vs. long-term) between users and non-users of dating apps. Participants were 902 single students from a mid-size Spanish university, of both sexes (63% female, and 37% male), aged between 18 and 26 years ( M = 20.34, SD = 2.05), who completed a battery of online questionnaires. It was found that, whereas dating apps users had a higher short-term mating orientation than non-users (more frequent behavior, higher desire, and more positive attitude), there were no differences in the long-term orientation as a function of use/non-use. Considering this, dating apps are a resource with a strong presence of people interested on hooking-up while, simultaneously, not a bad (nor good) option for finding long-term love.