Online dating statistics

Since the emergence of the internet, mate-finding and courtship have seen changes due to online dating services and mobile dating services. Telecommunications and computer technologies have developed rapidly since around 1995, allowing daters the use of home telephones with answering machines – mobile phones – and web-based systems to find prospective partners. "Pre-dates" can take place by telephone or online via instant messaging, e-mail, or even video communication.

One in five singles is said to look for love on the Web, which has led to a dramatic shift in dating patterns.[citation needed] Research in the United Kingdom suggests that as of 2004 there were around 150 agencies in the country, and the market was growing at around 20 percent a year due to the very low entry barriers to setting up a dating site and the rising number of single people.[who?] Academic researchers find it impossible to find precise figures about crucial statistics, such as the ratio of active daters to the large number of inactive members (whom an agency will often wrongly claim as potential partners, leaving them 'on the books' long after they have left) and the overall ratio of men to women in an agency's membership. Academic research on traditional pre-Internet agencies suggests that most such agencies had far more men than women in their membership.[who?] Due to the ratio of available single women being biased against men in the Western world, many dating and marriage agencies began to offer services over-seas.