Demographics of niche and mainstream dating sites.

First, feel free to download our Powerpoint presentation from Google Docs here. You can also click on any image to see a larger version.

Internet Dating: "Getting It On(Line)"

A Soc 419 Project by Arianna, Rachel, Kyle, and Elyse.

Abstract

Is there a difference in demographics between people who use general dating sites and niche dating sites?

We've found that mainstream sites tended to represent internet averages more consistently than did niche sites. Niche sites had extreme deviations in some categories, however.

Barraket's Three Types of Dating Sites

1. Search/Sort/Match

• users choose particular characteristics

2. Personality Matching

• matching done by site with personality testing

3. Social Networking

• users can invite friends and match each other
• also takes advantage of current technology (e.g. text messaging, video)

Who is dating online?

Valkenburg-Peter study:

• 30-50 year olds
• socially inept people, shy people, people with relationship problems
• 40-year-olds, who may be divorced, have families, and/or careers

Barraket's study:

• not just shy people, but also people with busy lives

Online dating using increasingly different technology, so demographics likely to change rapidly.

Why are people dating online?

• More people are single, busy, and mobile
• Fewer potential partners in current social network
• Lots of control over self-presentation
• Social factors, not individual factors, are the reason for choosing to date online

How do people date online?

• Online relationships devalue proximity, but proximity is still a factor.
• Sites are made for the user to meet people out-of-network (i.e. their friends, work, school)
• Niche sites show that people still look for similarities: "different but not too different"
• Old norms are reproduced, but new norms are forming

What we did

• Each of us chose a mainstream and niche site and created an account or examined profile-creation questions.
• We read articles about past studies on online dating and chose the most relevant points from each.
• We then used data from Quantcast to compare the demographics of these sites to each other and to the Internet average.

Our research sites

Mainstream Sites:

• These sites were mainly "personality matching" (Yahoo! Personals excepted)
• Match.com (Quantcast data)
• Perfect Match (Quantcast data)
• Chemistry.com (Quantcast data)
• Yahoo! Personals (Quantcast data)

Niche Sites:

• All of the niche sites we examined were "search/sort/match"
• Green Friends: People concerned about the environment. (Quantcast data)
• Sugar Daddy: People looking to "date rich." (Quantcast data)
• BBW Cupid: People looking for plus-size women. (Quantcast data)
• Trek Passions: People interested in sci-fi. (Quantcast data)

Age and education.

Green Friends has an above-average number of members who have completed graduate school, as well as above-average numbers of members in the 18-34 age range.

• Environmental concerns as a "young adult" issue

All sites have above-average number of members in the 35-49 age range.

• Lower-than-average numbers of people aged 50 and over in BBW and Sugar Daddy.

All mainstream sites are above-average for members aged 50 and over.

• Are people on niche sites looking for a less serious partner, or are older Internet users just not savvy enough to find these specific sites? Do people aged 50 and older have interest in sites such as BBW and other niche sites, but since they are not aware of the existence of these sites, are they more likely to look to more mainstream sites/relationships?

The studies we read were accurate in respect to age.

Gender.

Sugar Daddy has predictably higher-than-average numbers of women.

Trek Passions has higher-than-average numbers of men. This is not particularly surprising, since sci-fi tends to be a male-dominated niche group.

Yahoo! Personals was the only mainstream site with higher-than-average numbers of males. Could this be due to the fact that it's free to browse through profiles, and based on some studies, men's top activity on social networking sites is looking through pictures of women they don't know?

Income and kids.

The mainstream sites are much closer to the internet average than are the niche sites. This may have to do with the fact that these mainstream sites are more advertised to the general population.

Green Friends, whose members are making less than average, are still in college or paying off student loans. They also are most likely to not have children for the same reason.

Race.

BBW and Sugar Daddy have more African-Americans.

• Is there more "fat pride" in African-American communities?

Trek Passions also has many African-Americans

• This could be due to the fact that Star Trek was the first show to have powerful non-white characters.

Green Friends has the most above-average percentage of Asian members.

• This is something we have yet to understand.

What's next?

A study on the practice of deception on online sites--does it make our data less accurate?

Are relationships initiated online more or less likely to involve violence?

Sources:

• Barraket, J., & Henry-Waring, M.S. (2008). Getting it on(line): Sociological perspectives on e-dating. Journal of Sociology, 44(2), 149-165.
• Valkenburg, Patti M. and Peter Jochen. Who Visits Online Dating Sites? Exploring Some Characteristics of Online Daters. CyberPsychology & Behavior; Dec 2007, Vol. 10 Issue 6, p 849-852.

Just for the sake of amusement, check out this amazing video of dating in the 80s--before the age of dating sites! Also, from Sociological Images, the question What Do Women Want? was posed. They studied users on the fairly mainstream site, OkCupid, and found that what women really want is to be treated like a human--and male self-effacement. The graphs are very entertaining!