Do Hookup-App Users Actually Have More Sex?
If you think Tinder and other hookup apps still deliver quick sex, think again.
Updated November 9, 2025 | Reviewed by Margaret Foley
The first sex-tonight hookup app, Grindr, aimed at LGBT+ folks, launched in 2009. But for heterosexuals, hook-up-now apps did not become popular until 2012 Tinder appeared. IIt became an immediate sensation. After just two years, it was attracting more than 1 billion visits a day, with 90 percent of users being young adults.
Tinder arrived with seductive hype: Forget sexual caution. Forget getting to know people in all their psychological complexity. Just join, tap, and get ready to undress.
On social media , breathless users declared how easy it was to meet prospective sex partners, and that after a drink or three, sex was almost guaranteed. Tinder’s remarkable success quickly spawned other hookup apps such as Bumble and Hinge.
But if hookup apps ever delivered easy sex, is that still the case? Compared with nonusers, do today's users actually gain more sex? A recent large, rigorous survey shows they do not. The apps actually work better for traditional dating than for quick flings.
Researchers at several universities, including Stanford, obtained data from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG). Launched in 1973 by the National Center for Health Statistics, the NSFG now involves an ongoing combination of surveys and face-to-face interviews dealing with a huge variety of subjects administered to tens of thousands of Americans aged 15 to 49. Participants include a representative cross-section of this age group. Social scientists consider the NSFG findings highly credible.
For this study, the researchers catalogued responses from 11,225 individuals, of whom 757 reported using hookup apps in pursuit of casual sex.
Who Uses Hookup Apps?
These findings generally correlate with youthful experimentation and sensation-seeking . Compared with the rest of the population, never-married, app-using young people tend to be more bisexual, more secular, and more likely to use recreational drugs. They’re at a stage of life when they’re experimenting with adulthood, figuring out who they really are, and trying things that may or may not stick as they mature.
Casual Sex: No More Than Nonusers
Surprisingly, the study showed “no correlation between hook-up app use and sexual frequency.”
This finding pretty much corroborates two previous studies. Researchers at the University of Wyoming and investigators at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands both found that compared to nonusers, app users have more sexual partners —but no more total sex .
While it’s quite possible to find casual sex partners on hookup apps, the initial hype now appears outdated. These apps are no longer tickets to nightly sex, or even more frequent sex.
Today, Hookup Apps Are Less About Sex Than Dating
Nowadays, many people of all ages, particularly young adults, meet dating partners and life partners online using dating apps. This has become so widespread that it has spawned a new relationship milestone. Today, when two people go from merely dating to officially being in a monogamous relationship, they pledge to take down their dating-app profiles—and check that the other person has. Failure to delete or suspend one’s profile may precipitate conflict, even breakups.
Tinder and other hookup apps grew out of dating apps. But a funny thing happened on the way to quick, casual sex. The hookup apps have run up against one undeniable cultural fact: Most people express a strong preference for lasting relationships over quick romps. You can still use Tinder to prowl for casual sex tonight. But it and other hookup apps have evolved away from one-nighters. Today, they place more emphasis on traditional dating that (hopefully) leads to ongoing, long-term relationships. This fits right in with the study’s finding that hookup app users don’t gain significantly more sex.
Facebook image: Dikushin Dmitry/Shutterstock
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Michael Castleman, M.A. , is a San Francisco-based journalist. He has written about sexuality for 36 years.
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.