Swiping for love in a hopeless place? Just 4% of millennial Tinder users want a relationship

We bring bad news for anyone using the Tinder dating app to actually look for a new relationship – and even those after a no-strings hookup are going to be disappointed, as the majority of users are swiping right to boost their own self-confidence, or procrastinate.

In fact, of almost 10,000 millennial college students asked, just 4% – fewer than one in 20 people – said they use Tinder to look for a relationship. And while 22% are after a hookup, almost 45% are procrastinating with no intent to meet anyone they talk to, and 29% are there for mysterious 'other reasons', a new survey has found.

The survey was conducted by LendEdu, a US-based student loan consultancy, which said: "If people are seeking a serious relationship, then they are most likely not going to use Tinder...Additionally, even though more people use Tinder to find a hookup over a serious relationship, most of the app's users are not even genuine about that.

"Many people on Tinder are only looking to boost their confidence by racking up matches with no real intention of meeting that person."

Further research found that, of 3,852 millennial students asked if they had ever met anyone from Tinder, 72% said no, they had not. With 80% of Tinder users being millennials, this suggests very few users are actually meeting up with each other.

Mike Brown of LendEdu said: "Simply put, these numbers are not good for Tinder. In fact, they pale in comparison to online dating sites' success rate."

Statistics produced in 2016 revealed that an estimated 66% of online dating members have gone on at least one date with someone they matched with, a hit-rate more than double that among Tinder's millennial users.

In summary, Brown states: "For the time being, it appears that Tinder will remain an app that almost entirely produced random hookups and will never even scrape the niche that sites like Match.com and eHarmony have carved out."