If the Covid-19 pandemic has not affected your personal life in any way, you can safely call yourself lucky, because others were much less fortunate. Social ties for millions of people have been broken, attempts to make new acquaintances turn out to be failures over and over again, and existing relationships fall to pieces out of the blue…
But let’s speak unfoundedly — let’s take a look at the statistics. The numbers are impressive, and not in a positive sense:
· In the UK, there were 122% more divorce applications in 2021 than in 2020.
· In the US, the Citizen’s Advice company reported a 34% increase in online searches for divorce.
· Representatives of the law firm Stewarts reported that the percentage of divorces initiated by women increased in 2021 — 76% (a year ago it was 60%).·
· Around the world the number of marriages is decreasing from year to year, and this process began even before the pandemic.
For clarity, we can look at Statista data on the number of marriages in the United States in different years:
- 1990 — 2.44 million marriages
- 1995 — 2.34 million marriages
- 2000 — 2.2 million marriages
- 2010 — 2.1 million marriages
- 2019 — 2.02 million marriages
- 2020 — 1.6 million marriages
A similar picture can be observed in most countries around the world. But is it all that bad? On the one hand, yes. The demographic situation in the world is alarming — the number of marriages is declining, and the population of the planet is growing. In other words, the number of single people is also increasing.
On the other hand, 2021 showed that the situation is returning to normal. The United States last year recorded a record number of new marriages — 2.77 million. This is easy to explain — many couples have postponed their marriage from a difficult 2020 to a calmer and safer 2021. However, in 2022, the statistics are likely to drop again.
How people meet, communicate and build relationships during a pandemic
Online dating was very common in the pre-Covid period. But after 2019, when the world first started talking about the Covid-19 virus, we’ve seen a significant increase in internet dating around the world. In 2020, the statistics were as follows:
- 1 in 3 people around the world used online dating services at least once in their life.
- About 13% of users approach online dating with all seriousness and are aiming to find a relationship here.
- There are more than eight thousand Internet dating services in the world and this number continues to increase.
- About 40% of dating app users say they signed up after the pandemic began.
- About 75% of users say that a real meeting after online dating worked out well for them.
There are more than enough platforms for dating on the Internet today — classic dating sites and applications, social networks, instant messengers, themed forums, random video chats and much more. Having lost the opportunity to get acquainted offline, millions of people turned to the Internet. And it really paid off. Even despite the fact that 30% of people say they are in no hurry to meet online acquaintances in real life, the remaining 70% are not against a face to face meeting. But at the same time, many take into account the fact whether a person is vaccinated or not.
Video chats suddenly changed the format of online dating
Let’s dive into history. Omegle, the first random web chat site, was launched in the spring of 2009. Just six months later, the first alternative to Omegle and a serious competitor appeared — Chatroulette. It already had a random video chat function, and Omegle at that time only had text messaging. Soon, Omegle added a video format, and a couple of months later, dozens of rivals from other developers began to appear based on the wave of popularity of these two platforms.
The appearance of competitors, as well as limited functionality and poor moderation, greatly shook Omegle’s position. Even in 2010, the site began to lose its audience — people simply chose alternatives. Furthermore, after 2012-2013, interest in the video chat format itself began to gradually subside. Users began to spend more time in social networks, and then in instant messengers. Many preferred specialized dating sites and apps. But then Covid-19 happened…
By the time the pandemic began, the format of dating sites and apps had become tired and limited. This was one of the reasons why thousands of users suddenly remembered Omegle and its rivals again. In addition, bloggers and TikTokers helped spur interest in video chats. They recorded viral videos on video chat sites with reactions and pranks, the videos collected millions of views, and their audience rushed en masse to discover this communication format.
Along with the growing popularity of Omegle, whose audience has tripled in two years, the alternatives have also grown — Ome.tv, VideochatOmegle.com, Camsurf.com, Bazoocam.org and others.
Beyond the hype, video chat sites attracted users with several other features:
1. Video chats save a lot of time, because you don’t need to spend time registering, filling out a profile, studying other users’ profiles, and so on.
2. Video chats have a huge audience. Go to Omegle video chat website at any time, and there will most likely be more than 30-35 thousand people online.
3. Only video chat allows you to understand a person much more completely, read their body language, assess their mood and interest in further communication. No text messaging will give you this.
Do not confuse video chats with video calling services such as Zoom, Skype, Google Meet, etc. These platforms are ideal for chatting with people you already know — friends, relatives or work colleagues. Meanwhile video chats like Omegle are designed for first acquaintance. Of course, you can later transfer the dialogue to the same Zoom so as not to lose an interesting chat partner.
Fun fact: In 2019, there were about 10 million online conversations per day on Zoom. While in the spring of 2020, this number exceeded 300 million. So the increase was 2900%. Admittedly later, due to the scandal associated with the leakage of user data, the statistics dropped significantly. But regardless, Zoom, like its rivals, remains super popular.
Online dating is our future
The coronavirus pandemic has been one of the biggest boosters to the online dating industry in recent years. The effect of it has even been observed where no one expected it. For example, Omegle and its alternatives developed rather slowly until 2020 and rarely pleased users with interesting new features. However since the beginning of the pandemic super-rapid growth has been observed, and there are now more useful and original alternatives to Omegle, offering unique features and tools for finding chat partners.
There are those who believe that with the coronavirus gone, interest in online dating will again drop to its former levels. We don’t think so. The fact is that over the past couple of years, people’s understanding of the dating process has changed. People have embraced and loved the online dating format. Why give up what you love? This question, as you might guess, is rhetorical.
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