A study released last month showed that almost 60% of LGBTI couples in America met online.

This compared to just over 20% who met in a bar or restaurant that year.

Sciologists Michael Rosenfeld and Sonia Hausen of Stanford University and Reuben Thomas of Arizona State University conducted the study.

It looked at data from the multi-year How Couples Meet and Stay Together survey across nearly 20 years from 1980 to 2017.

Meeting online was by far the most frequent way LGBTI people in same-sex relationships met their significant others in 2017.

Early adopters of online dating

In fact, the study found: ‘Same-sex couples were early adopters of Internet services for meeting partners.

‘About 65% of same-sex couples who met in 2017 met online, compared to about 39% for heterosexual couples.’

Rosenfeld and Hausen considered Grindr, released in 2009, as ‘helping initiate the phone app phase of Internet dating’.

While meeting in church was the lowest in numbers across the last 20 years.

Around 5% of same-sex couples met in church in 1980 and has plummeted since.

Similarly, meeting as coworkers, neighbours or through school, friends or family, have all similarly declined.

Only meeting in college and school showed an increase, though both were just under 5%.

‘Serendipity is lost’

Though dating apps are helping the LGBTI community connect, they are creating divisions.

Another study showed dating apps that have race filters reenforce racial bias and fetishize certain groups.

Moreover, ‘Serendipity is lost when people are able to filter other people out,’ said lead author Jevan Hutson to the Cornell Chronicle.