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After graduating from college in Missouri, Rogers native Jen Lawrence moved to Washington, Houston and then Little Rock, where she lives now.

For each city, there was an app. Or rather, multiple apps.

“Honestly, most of my post-college career has been mostly dating through online apps,” Lawrence, 32, said. “So I’ve tried different ones … in all the different states that I’ve been in, and that’s really how I met people and met significant others.”

In Little Rock, it was Hinge, which markets itself as “designed to be deleted,” that led her to her now husband, Zachary, who was also a veteran app user. They met in 2021 and were married in November.

“I did a little bit of everything,” Zachary Lawrence, 31, said. “So Bumble, Hinge, Facebook, Tinder, you name it. And then Hinge was the one that landed us. I was obviously looking for something a little bit more real. So Hinge wound up being a better one, because I felt like Hinge was more of a mature dating app. It’s more trying to find the one you’re looking for.”

When Jen Lawrence first joined the world of dating apps, she said, there were limited options. Now, she said, there are apps that serve a wide variety of needs and locations.

“Tinder was the standard,” she said. “You go there, you get your hookups and stuff like that. But to meet those a little bit deeper relationships, I found that Coffee Meets Bagel was big in Washington, D.C. I used Hinge and Bumble in Houston, and then here in Little Rock was Hinge as well.”

She describes herself as a “rather socially awkward person,” something that made the apps especially helpful when she moved to a new place.

“I don’t really go out to bars, so I didn’t know where else to meet people, other than through work or like through different groups that I was maybe involved in,” which led nowhere, she said. “So I was on the dating apps.”

For her husband, the apps made dating possible at a time when he was working 60 hours a week.

“You just don’t have a whole lot of time to be meeting folks whenever you’re working six days a week,” Zachary Lawrence said.

He has noticed that the apps have increased in number and popularity.

“As far as the number of people on dating apps, that’s definitely gone up in recent memory,” he said. “A lot of my guy friends that are single, every single one of them — I mean it’s almost a universal truth that if you’re below the age of 30 now, it is what it is.”

“It’s kind of nice,” Jen Lawrence added.

“That it’s not like an embarrassing thing, right?” she said. “I’m not embarrassed that we met on a dating app.”

A study released in 2023 by the Pew Research Center found that 1-in-10 partnered adults — meaning those who are married, living with a partner or in a committed romantic relationship — met their current significant other through a dating site or app.

According to the study, 3 in 10 U.S. adults say they have used a dating site or app, with Tinder being the most popular app, followed by Match and then Bumble.

Like Jen Lawrence, Dicky Miller, 31, who was raised in Little Rock, found the apps invaluable across multiple moves.

After graduating from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Miller lived in Spain; Washington; Portland, Ore., and New York before moving back in Little Rock.

“When you get to a new place, you’re just … definitely curious, like what kind of people are here and, what are the people like,” Miller said “I always am curious to see what the average person here likes or what are they’re into.”

Miller first joined the apps at age 22 and have met multiple romantic partners, including their current girlfriend, through an app.

Miller said without the use of apps they “would have probably dated way less people.”

“I feel like you can kind of find someone’s personality through an app and see if you match with them in a way that, I don’t know, I probably wouldn’t have the skills to do in like, a bar or … with a stranger.

“I’m also kind of a shy person. I don’t go … out to bars and just talk to strangers … I guess I get introduced to people from friends or work, but after a certain age, it’s like, you’re not in college anymore, and if you’re not super outgoing, how else do you meet new people?”

My Ly is a Report for America Corps member.