Statistics published by Similar Web and shared by Helplama, showed that over 26% of total Hinge users were aged between 18-24 in 2023. This corresponds with the typical age of people in higher education. As a student myself I was curious as to how different people perceived the dating experience on Hinge, so I interviewed a variety of different students from different degrees and backgrounds, to gauge a better understanding of the average user experience on the app.
Why download Hinge in the first place?
There are many possible reasons to download a dating app, and the answers to this questions were quite varied. Some students did it out of curiosity, others for fun and some to genuinely try and meet someone.
“I had a few friends that were using Hinge and they were telling me they were going on a few dates, so I got convinced to do the same thing.” – Tomas, business management student.
“Me and a flatmate last year were kind of bored and just decided to download it for a bit of fun, nothing serious.” – Sophie, marketing student.
“Well, I had just gotten out of a long-term relationship and I wanted to, you know, see what was out there and have fun,” – Natalie, business management student.
Likes and matches
According to the interviewees, there is a large gap in receiving likes between genders.
Natalie, comments: “I think that girls have a way easier time with the app. But for guys, they don’t get as many likes.”
Students were asked on average how many likes do you get on a daily basis? The response from female students was between 4-30 likes. Meanwhile, most male students commented they usually get between 0-1 likes generally, much lower than their female counterparts.
According to Forbes, the matchmaking algorithm behind Hinge makes use of the Nobel Prize winning Gale-Shapley algorithm. Hinge uses the algorithm to try and optimise the pest potential matches for its users, which in theory should lead to a higher success rate in making couples. Despite this, all of the students interviewed struggled with their potential matches.
Although female students received overwhelmingly more likes, their success in the results after matching ended up being quite similar to the male experience. Both sides generally agreed that matching never really led anywhere, and in many cases, even a date would not ensue.
“They weren’t very successful. Most of them, even though I would talk to them, it wouldn’t really lead to anything. And we wouldn’t really go out on a date.” -Tomas
“I once went on one date, but that date wasn’t successful.” – Sophie
However, this does not mean it does not work out for everyone since some people do successfully meet a partner on Hinge. Ariana, a psychology student, met her current girlfriend through the app. She downloaded the app mainly to meet queer people near her, but in the end, she found a partner.
“I wasn’t particularly looking for a relationship, but then I met her, and we got closer. And in the end it went towards a relationship.” – Ariana
Swiping
Do you swipe regularly or just try to match with people who like you?
The response differed significantly on gender. Most of the male students tend to swipe whenever they are on the app, whilst the girls ended up never swiping regularly and opted instead for just matching with people that had liked them already.
“I just match with people that like my profile” – Sophie,
“I just try and swipe on the people who I think I would be interested in” – Charlie, business management student.
This behaviour is normal across the experience of the interviewees on Hinge and it is similar to normal interactions from offline dating. It is still common in the dating scene for men to be expected to make the first move, and this translates directly into how the different genders interact with the features on Hinge.
“Traditionally, guys are more likely to go for girls than the other way around. So if you’re imagining online, girls are probably swiping less on guys than you know guys are doing it.” – Jamie, media communications student.
“I feel men have more of a pressure to message first. I feel like girls prefer waiting. They’re not as proactive compared to men.” – Claire, Japanese and Spanish translation and interpretation.
Profiles
Profile creation is a big cornerstone for Hinge and where it differs greatly from other apps. One of Hinge’s strengths is the ability to create a very personalised profile, with multiple pictures, a variety of prompts to choose from and showcasing a lot of information, including age, dating preferences, drinking alcohol, etc. It’s an important component of the Hinge experience, and students seem to approach profile creation in two ways. The first is with such great creative freedom, they put a lot of effort into their profile.
“It probably took like 30 minutes to an hour to actually choose the pictures that I wanted to use.” – Gonzalo, marketing and management student.
On the other hand, there are students who create a profile as quickly as possible and just dive into the experience.
“ I put minimal effort, it was the most basic foundation.” – Will, sports sciences student
“I didn’t really put any effort. I think it was just hard thinking of prompts and stuff” – Jamie
This lack of effort put into profiles directly affected the dating experience of the students as well. Among both genders it was a common occurrence to come across very generic profiles and prompts.
“A lot of times I see guys having the same answers for everything. Typical Sunday: hungover, my goal this year is: delete this app, it’s always the same.” – Natalie
“Usually, it is the same type of thing. You get a lot of similar answers or similar types of pictures.” – Charlie
At the same time, encountering interesting and well thought-out profiles is not uncommon either, and it balances out the mixing.
“From my perspective, I don’t know if it’s because they’re girls, but they’re really creative and funny. For example, in my case I didn’t have the guts to actually add a voice note to my profile, but there are some girls that use that and I like it.” – Gonzalo
Thoughts on the dating app experience on Hinge
The most common answer for this question was that Hinge would not be the place to find a potential partner. For both male students and female students this was reflected in the lack of success in matching.
“I just got tired of doing the same thing and I feel like I don’t really wanna meet people online anymore. At first I thought that that would be an interesting way to get to know other people, but now I’d rather just meet people through a conventional way.” – Tomas
“I got catfished once. I think people are quite nice and it’s good if you’re looking for something casual. But I wouldn’t want to find my soulmate there.” – Jamie
Even then students still did not regard the app as bad and in some cases was even praised over its competition on the dating market.
“I feel like it’s a better dating app compared to others because it’s not just about swiping, but you actually get to look at someone a little more. You can put hobbies and stuff like that, and there’s a little bit more information than you can get for example, on Tinder.” – Claire
“I’d say it’s like a low effort, low time app. And you can still be getting matches and still finding specific people without really having to do very much.” – Ariana
Is the app unfair?
The last question I asked the students was if they felt that the app was unfair for a specific gender. I did not specify a gender in these purely to see whether the responses would target one group over the other, and in the end, I was surprised to discover both male and female students thought the app was unfair.
“Certain girls they’re getting so many likes, meanwhile think about the guys, we just leave them in the dust? Which isn’t nice.” – Jamie
“I reckon it’s worse for girls, like the quality of profiles that appear to them are probably a bit worse and then because they get a lot of likes, it’s just spam.” -Will
“I wouldn’t say it’s unfair. Because both genders have the same features, at the end of the day.”
The interviews reveal that different genders do have slightly different experiences when using Hinge, regardless, they also face and share some of the same problems as well. It appears to be that despite the challenges everyone is struggling together to find the right match on Hinge, hopefully.
