Finding love online was once a way of the future, or the perfect setup to the latest Tom Hanks romantic comedy. But now, meeting your potential soulmate online is just as plausible as meeting in a coffee shop. Ever since Match. What used to carry a negative stigma—sometimes couples felt a little ashamed of telling their families how they met through Tinder —has become more acceptable and believable. It seems like everyone around me has either spent a few nights scrolling, matching, and even finding genuine connections on these apps.
But recently, I decided to give online dating a whirl—albeit, carefully and methodically. And of course, I had to make the data look pretty. Because love and dating is fun, I wanted my data visualization to reflect that.
But after a quick research session, Tinder is, by far, the most successful app in terms of numbers, according to Pew Research Center. But these conversations were just starting points for me. If I decided to give one a try, which one should it be? There are 1, dating apps and websites as of December , according to the product-reviews site Cloudwards , and that number only increases every year.
The best idea? Go with the numbers. I found some data on the number of monthly downloads by dating app as of June And while it might look like there is a big drop off in numbers from the top three to the bottom three, those bottom three apps are still ranked among the most popular apps with their downloads reaching a quarter of a million.
For numbers as large as these, a bar graph is the easiest way to effectively show these high numbers. Additionally, the phone app icons are just for a little embellishment. As more and more people make the shift from chance meet-cutes, blind dates, and friends of friends setting them up, dating apps have become even more populated.
