Gen Z is just about ready to give up on dating. They’re over dating apps. They’re dealing with burnout. They’re not hooking up. Now, the oldest members of Gen Alpha, born between 2010 and 2024, are in their teens and starting to develop crushes and go on their first dates. Are they destined for the same dating struggles?
Though they can’t use dating apps until they’re 18, Match Group decided to take an early look at Gen Alpha’s attitudes and expectations around dating. The company surveyed 823 nationally representative U.S. teens between 13 and 15, building on an earlier qualitative phase of one-on-one interviews and focus groups with 14- to 19-year-olds. The early signs suggest the youngest generation is already getting butterflies.
Only 20% of Gen Alpha teens have been in a relationship so far, but they’re showing interest in real connections and optimism about what relationships could eventually become. “It’s fun to be 13 to 15, and the entire world looks ahead of you,” Chine Mmegwa, head of strategy and corporate development and operations at Match Group, tells Fast Company. “That sense of optimism has returned for this generation, which we hadn’t seen in our Gen Z data.”
At the same age, many members of Gen Z were isolated from friends and peers by a global pandemic, leaving them struggling with loneliness and basic dating skills. “Gen Z data came in [on] the back of COVID,” says Mmegwa. “My fear had always been that we would never get that innocence back.”
Gen Alpha, on the other hand, appears more upbeat. Of those surveyed by Match Group, 92% are happy with their social lives, and 84% say they have a great future ahead of them, up 6 percentage points from teens the same age just three years ago. To be sure, Gen Alpha is growing up surrounded by screens and social media, but it’s also maturing amid conversations about mental health and wellness, absorbing those lessons and establishing boundaries early.
For Gen Alpha, crushes might come and go, but friendship is the top priority. Among those who aren’t dating but are open to it, 48% say they’re most interested in friendship with romantic potential, 44% in just talking or flirting, and only 30% in anything committed. Of all respondents, 64% believe people should be friends before they date.
This isn’t unusual for teens, who are exploring the boundaries of friendships and other types of relationships for the first time, but it continues a trend seen with Gen Z. Tinder recently launched casual modes to appeal to these Gen Z daters, 33% of whom strongly agree that expanding their social network is important, compared with 20% of older singles, according to a Tinder x Harris Poll white paper released earlier this year.
This focus on friendship may help explain why many Gen Alpha teens have yet to explore dating. Only 20% have been in a relationship, compared with 56% of Gen Z respondents who reported having been in a relationship during their teen years. “Much of what you get out of dating, they’re getting out of other relationships in their life,” says Mmegwa.
That doesn’t mean they’re anti-dating. Some 71% say their friends think dating is cool, and 64% say most people their age are dating or trying to. Among the 79% who aren’t dating, three in four are open to it. They’re just not in any rush. They remain interested in traditional life milestones, including marriage, homeownership, and children, and 87% say they’re very confident they’ll reach them.
“They’re excited about these things, which we haven’t seen in the Gen Z data,” says Mmegwa.
Gen Alpha members are also more positive about dating apps, although perhaps that’s because they’ve yet to use them. Just over half, 51%, are open to using dating apps once they turn 18, and 65% say they’ve heard dating apps can be a fun way to meet people.
“I love that 65% of them think dating apps could be a fun way to meet people,” says Mmegwa. “We haven’t had that in a while where people tie dating apps to fun, and so I will take that any day.”
Despite these hopeful signs for Gen Alpha, dating apps are facing a crisis. Singles have swipe fatigue. Bumble recently went private after years of declining subscriber numbers and falling revenue, which was down 15.2% year over year in the second quarter. A 2026 Harris Poll found that two-thirds of singles weren’t using dating apps at all, and 72% said apps had made dating feel more transactional than romantic.
Where Match Group went wrong in recent years, Mmegwa admits, is that the company didn’t evolve fast enough for Gen Z. “Our hope is that this generation [Gen Alpha] should never have the experience that dating apps are bad because by the time they are aging into our experience, we have solved the problem for Gen Z.”
Across the industry, the swipe model that helped create the paradox of choice plaguing modern dating is being overhauled by established apps and newcomers alike. While Gen Alpha isn’t creating profiles just yet, the groundwork for the future of dating is already being laid.
Will the next generation of daters still be swiping left in years to come? Will the future of dating involve more bird-watching meet-cutes and hobby-based hangouts? Will AI take over dating entirely?
“My gut says it’ll look totally different,” says Mmegwa. “I’m excited to see what that looks like.”
