After a U.K. man wrote to the Guardian about his addiction to hookup apps (“I spend hours and hours online looking at hook-up ads on my phone.”), we asked Queerty readers about their own hookup habits. Now, the results:
Related: How many hours per day do you spend on hookup apps? Take our poll and see what others say.
A total of 1,565 readers participated in our poll. 1,187 (76%) of you said you spend an average of 0-2 hours per day on hookup apps, and 295 (19%) said you spend an average of 3-6 hours per day.
43 (3%) of you reported that you spend between 7-9 hours per day on hookup apps, compared to 21 (1.3%) who say you spend 10 or more hours per day.
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And then there are there are those of you who spend all day, every day on the prowl. A total of 19 (1.2%) Queerty readers said they are constantly on hookup apps 24/7.
Related: Dating apps are turning people into sex addicts, doctor warns
We asked Jake Myers, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist based in Los Angeles, what he thought of these results.
“Dating apps are a convenient way to meet guys and aren’t going anywhere any time soon,” he tells us. “Where it can get dicey is if you find yourself constantly checking them, and it’s easy to go down that rabbit hole.”
He continues, “Apps can become a quick way to get immediate gratification and can be very additive. Even the little rumble sound that Grindr makes when you have a new message can trigger a euphoric response.”
Related: This Behavior At Gay Bars Absolutely Needs To Stop
Jake’s advice? Log off from time to time.
“Pay attention to whether using the app is taking away from time that could be spent more productively,” he says. “If there are things being pushed aside because you’re spending too much time online, you might want to try a Grindr ‘detox.’ However, as long as it doesn’t affect the rest of your life in a negative way, why not take advantage of what technology has to offer?”
Heywood Jablowme
Gee, there must be a really big disparity between the Queerty poll participants and the Queerty comment participants. As we all know, there are a lot of Queerty commenters who apparently met their monogamous husbands at church picnics, and would NEVER use something as sleazy and slutty as a hook-up app!
Vortece
Not sure why you think that. The questionnaire didn’t separate readers who have never used the app from readers use it less than 2 hours per day, but 76% of us fell into that category.
Heywood Jablowme
@Vortece: The headline is a bit misleading in saying “compare to other Queerty READERS.” The readership as a whole is always going to be somewhat of an unknown, because you never know who’s going to take a survey, or how representative that sample really is. It’s a matter of the self-selection: readers who never, ever use the apps would be fairly unlikely to take the survey to begin with (although they could, of course).
I was kidding in my first post, because Queerty COMMENTS are full of prudes, busybodies and monogamous pearl-clutchers who post here to inform everyone of their superiority to us promiscuous sleazy sluts!
Brian
Zero should’ve been its own category. By combining the never-users with the casual-users, you obscured some big conclusions.
Karlis
I didn’t notice this poll when it was up, but I would have skewed the results downwards, because I have never once used Grinder or anything like that. Never had any interest in doing so.