The casual sex era appears to be winding down. In 2004, 78% of millennials reported having sex on the first date. A 2025 survey found that 62% of Gen Z say neither they nor their friends engage in one-night stands. Only 23% admit to casual hookups at all. Among 978 college students surveyed, 71% said they have not participated in hookup culture within the past year.
These numbers tell a story that runs counter to common assumptions about young people. The generation raised with smartphones and instant access to dating apps has become the generation least interested in using them for quick encounters.
The Dating App Exodus
Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge built their business models on volume. Swipe right, match, meet, repeat. The formula worked for years. It no longer does.
A 2024 Ofcom report found Tinder lost 594,000 UK users. Bumble dropped 368,000. Hinge fell by 131,000. The platforms that once dominated how young people met are bleeding users at a steady pace.
The reasons behind the decline are practical. A 2024 Forbes Health survey found 79% of Gen Z users feel fatigued by dating apps. They invest time without finding genuine connections. Hours spent swiping produce conversations that go nowhere, dates that feel rehearsed, and a growing sense that the format itself is broken.
Only 21.2% of Gen Z use apps as their primary way to connect, according to a 2025 Kinsey Institute and DatingAdvice.com survey. The rest have moved on.
What They Actually Look For
Gen Z approaches partners with a different set of priorities than previous generations. A 2025 Kinsey Institute and DatingAdvice.com survey found that 58% prefer meeting people in person rather than through apps. They want to observe how someone carries themselves, how they treat others, and how they handle ordinary moments. The qualities of a good woman or man matter more to this group than quick chemistry or surface-level attraction.
Only 21% of Gen Zers believe marriage is irrelevant, a notable drop from the 39% of millennials who held that view in the early 2000s. This generation appears to take long-term compatibility seriously. Bank of America data shows 53% of Gen Z adults spend nothing on dating each month, suggesting they are selective about who gets their time and attention in the first place.
The Pandemic Factor
Hinge CMO Jackie Jantos offered context in an interview with CNBC. She pointed out that this generation grew up during a period when their late teenage years and early 20s were spent in lockdown. The pandemic interrupted the normal social development that previous generations took for granted.
House parties, college mixers, random encounters at bars, and the slow buildup of attraction through repeated interaction all went away for years. Young people learned to be alone. They learned to be selective about who they let into their space. Those habits have persisted.
The lockdown period also gave many young people time to think about what they actually wanted. When normal life resumed, they did not rush back to the patterns that existed before. They returned with different expectations.
Money and Priorities
Bank of America found that 53% of Gen Z adults spend $0 monthly on dating. This figure is striking. Previous generations treated dating as an expected expense, something to budget for alongside rent and groceries.
Gen Z has different financial pressures. Student debt, housing costs, and wage stagnation make every dollar matter. Spending money on someone who might not be worth it feels wasteful. The economics of dating have become a filter. If someone does not seem promising, the date does not happen.
This frugality extends to time as well. A bad date costs an evening. Repeated bad dates cost weeks. Gen Z appears to have decided that filtering hard upfront saves resources in the long run.
In-Person Returns
The preference for meeting people face to face at 58% suggests a return to older modes of connection. Friends of friends, community events, shared hobbies, and workplace interactions have become the preferred channels again.
This makes sense when you consider what apps cannot provide. You cannot sense someone’s energy through a screen. You cannot watch how they tip a bartender or talk to a stranger. The small signals that indicate character require physical presence to read.
Gen Z grew up with more screen time than any generation before. They know its limitations better than anyone. The move toward in-person meetings is not nostalgia for something they never had. It is a correction based on direct knowledge of what screens fail to deliver.
What Comes Next
The data points toward a generation that wants relationships but refuses to settle for bad ones. They are not anti-sex or anti-dating. They are anti-waste.
Marriage holds more appeal for them than it did for millennials at the same age. Casual encounters hold less. The hookup culture that defined the 2000s and early 2010s appears to be fading, replaced by something more deliberate.
Dating apps will adapt or decline further. The platforms that survive will need to offer something beyond volume. Quality over quantity is the demand. The generation making this demand grew up with infinite options and learned that infinite options often mean infinite disappointment.
Gen Z is choosing fewer, better connections. The era of swiping through hundreds of faces to find one worth meeting may be ending. What replaces it will be slower, more intentional, and more focused on compatibility than convenience.
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