Is it enough to know that an attractive, available man is 500 feet away? Like many of the gay men who use first-generation mobile dating apps, this has been the hot question on our minds since mobile dating apps first appeared.

A national survey of 537 gay men — conducted by Stagg —  shows a significant need in the mobile dating app market for users to learn more than just the location of an individual potential match. With never-before-seen technology, Stagg changes mobile dating for gay men.

Survey Highlights:

Sample Characteristics:

  • Single gay and bisexual men.
  • Culturally diverse.
  • Age range from 18 to 73.
  • Average age is 28.

Apps move dating away from computer screens and into public and social settings.

  • 56% of the respondents said that they use dating apps in public.
  • More than one-third of all respondents, 37%, use the apps while with their friends.

Apps bridge communication and build connections.

  • 78% said that apps help them to start a conversation that they wouldn’t have otherwise initiated.
  • More than one-third of respondents, 35%, said that apps are a way to have fun with their friends.

App users search for a deeper connection.

  • 66% of the respondents said they use apps in the hopes of finding long-term potential, despite an almost universal belief that most guys on dating apps are looking for a hookup.
  • 64% said that they use dating apps to find new friends.
  • 16% of respondents – 1 in 6 men — choose dating apps as the most promising place to meet someone for long-term potential, a small but surprisingly substantial result given the reputation of first-generation dating apps for hookups.

Stagg satisfies the urgent dating needs of gay men.

  • 77% of the men said that when it comes to dating they don’t know where or how to find guys who are like themselves.
  • 65% stated that breaking the ice and starting a conversation is a serious impediment to meeting guys.
  • 56% said that dating apps are not friendly, when compared to dating websites.

An open-ended question put to these 537 men about what is most needed in apps revealed that they are seeking more substance in the type of information and potential connection than first-generation apps can deliver.