Demographic information collected from the participants..
This is a mixed-methods investigation consisting of an online survey and in-depth inter- views. The online survey was initially broadcast via the Facebook and Twitter accounts
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of the authors to their network connections (an initial audience of over 4000 people). The invitation was then subsequently ‘shared’ and ‘re-tweeted’ by willing network con- nections, and so on, in a ‘snowballing’ fashion. While the ‘snowball method’ can have epistemological limitations with regard to generating statistically significant represent- ative samples, the research method is nevertheless capable of collecting data indicative of broader social patterns and trends, especially when the survey reaches a broad cohort of participants (see Atkinson and Flint, 2003; Denscombe, 2010: 37; Neuman, 2011: 268–9).
The Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) of the University of Sydney gave approval to the project (Project No: 2015/716) in October 2015. This study’s information statement, along with a control question, made it clear that only ‘present and past users of dating and/or hook-up applications’ were able to complete the survey, and that their privacy would be protected. The survey consisted of a combination of open-ended, multiple-choice and Likert-scale questions and took approximately 20–25 minutes to complete. Conducted between October 2015 and January 2016, the survey had a total of 365 respondents, of whom most, but not all, answered all questions.
Detailed demographic information was collected from the research participants. Approximately 80% of the respondents were Australian, but 14 other nationalities were also represented in the survey data. With regard to gender identification, 58% identified as female, 40% as male, 0.5% as transgender, 0.5% as ‘other’ and 0.5% ‘prefer not to say’. The sexuality of the participants varied, with approximately 73% identifying as ‘hetero- sexual’, 13.5% as ‘gay or lesbian’, 8% as ‘bisexual’, 1% as ‘asexual’ and 3% ‘as not belonging to any of these categories’. The relationship status of participants was also diverse, with 55% being ‘single/never married’, 21% in a ‘relationship but not living together’, 13% ‘married or in a domestic partnership’, 7.5% as ‘divorced or separated’, 3.5% as ‘polyamorous’. In regards to the age of the participants, 11% were 18–22 years of age, 35% were 23–7 (the largest cluster), 25% were 28–32 (the second largest cluster), 18% were 33–7, 2.5% were 38–42, 8% were 42–9, and 1% were 50+. The socioeconomic status (SES) of participants was also sought through a series questions on income, education and occupation, with most respondents providing responses that classified them as belonging to the broad ‘middle/upper middle SES’ grouping, with the ‘average’ participant being a university-educated, white-collar professional in the early stages of their career.
Survey participants could self-select to participate in a follow-up in-
depth, semi- structured interview by sending an email to an account exclusively established for the investigation. The first six individuals to express interest in participating in an in-depth interview were selected to take part in the study. The interviewees included three women and three men aged between 24 and 34. The majority of participants identified as hetero- sexual, with one interviewee identifying as lesbian. At the time of the interview, four persons were single, and two were in a relationship. All participants resided in Sydney, New South Wales, and their educational levels varied from undergraduate to postgradu- ate qualifications.
The majority of the in-depth interviews were conducted in participants’ homes in November 2015. To maintain participants’ anonymity, they were assigned pseudonyms in all transcriptions. The interviews sought to further explore issues and themes that emerged from the survey, including the different tactics used by participants in finding a
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date; their opinions regarding the potential social consequences of the technology; their satisfaction and dissatisfaction with different variants of the software; and whether users felt the technology had influenced their sexual practices and/or led to stable and fulfilling relationships. It is to the views and experiences of both the interviewees and the survey participants that we now proceed.
Demographic information collected from the participants.
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