As a millennial and Italia ‘90 baby I remember a time before the squawks and squeals of your modem and your mother shouting at you to get off the phone line as she needed to tell your aunt about the woman down the street who’d changed her hairstyle. Growing up before and during the MSN messenger, Bebo, Facebook and later Tinder and Bumble era, I’ve also seen and experienced how dating habits have changed. As millennials, we are a generation comfortable on apps and experienced with meeting in bars and clubs; we have seen both sides of the coin.

Now in my mid-30s, I am surrounded by married couples who met on Tinder, but I also have family members just five to ten years younger than me who use apps to tell them everything from when their 5k time needs to improve to when their sleep is waning, who shy away from swiping right on strangers to find love in 2026.

A growing body of research is now emerging into dating app fatigue. Trends show both men and women moving away from apps due to a host of reasons: scams, fake profiles, altered and enhanced images, and a general feeling of lack of real connection.

Those who are dating are moving to an old school approach: speed dating.

This shift is representative of an interest in monogamy by Gen Z, who are also dating less and are more career focused. Those who are dating are moving to an old school approach: speed dating. This means getting to meet more people in person instead of back-and-forth messaging for weeks which often comes to nothing.

As dating app usage declines, a quick search shows almost a dozen speed dating events are available across where I live in Scotland in February. Some of the events are murder mystery focused, some are for the LGBTQIA+ community, some are bisexual only, and others are broken down into age categories. 

Is it possible that the restrictions on meeting during the Covid lockdown have pushed us to want more time off screen and more human connection?

This Valentine’s Day the key to someone’s heart may be at a fun live event on your doorstep instead of through a screen… but it did work for me, three years married from a Scottish tinder match back in the hay day of dating apps in 2018.

See more of our Valentine's content in our OpenLearn Valentine's collection.