How Romance Scams Reach People Online
The Federal Trade Commission's April 2026 findings show that nearly 60% of people who reported losing money to a romance scam in 2025 said it started on social media. The figure concerns people reporting a loss. It is not a measure of how many social media conversations are fraudulent, and it cannot tell you whether a particular person is honest.
The FTC describes scammers tailoring their approach to information in a person's profile. Later, they may invent a crisis that needs money or offer investment advice that draws someone toward a fake investment platform. A conversation that feels personal can still follow this pattern. Consider what someone is asking you to do, alongside how warmly they speak to you.
Warning Signs and What to Do
In its June 2025 consumer alert, the FTC describes fake profiles and explanations for why someone cannot meet in person. A request for money may follow, perhaps for travel to see you or to deal with a supposed crisis. The important warning is the pattern of an online relationship moving toward a money request.
The FTC recommends several practical checks when this happens. They offer a way to examine the story without having to settle every question about the relationship first:
- Talk with friends or family about the online relationship and hear their perspective.
- Search for information about the person and their story, together with the word scammer, to look for similar accounts.
- Reverse image search the profile photo to see whether another name or conflicting details appear.
- Do not send money to someone you have never met in person.
The FTC also advises limiting who can see social media posts and contacts, and not letting someone known only through social media direct investment decisions. These steps address the information and money involved; they are not a test of whether someone deserves affection. If you believe the person is a scammer, the FTC advises cutting ties and telling the platform and the FTC.
Dating Apps and Your Wellbeing
A July 2026 review and meta-analysis in Communications Psychology compared users and non-users of swiping-based dating apps across 27 studies involving 21,263 participants. A meta-analysis brings results from multiple studies together. The review found small-to-moderate associations between app use and emotional distress, appearance concerns, and body image difficulties.
The result for general wellbeing was small and not statistically significant. The researchers also reported considerable variation between studies and gaps in evidence about how the associations develop. Taken together, the findings do not show that using an app causes distress, or that every user has the same experience.
Keep the distinction between a group finding and your own experience in view. You can consider how using an app feels to you without treating the study as a diagnosis or a rule about whether to date online. Questions about attention, appearance pressure, and what you want from the experience are points for reflection, not a clinical assessment.
Technology and Judgments About Chemistry
Pew Research Center's September 2025 survey on technology and human abilities found that 66% of Americans thought machine intelligence should have no role in judging whether two people could fall in love. Half expected this technology to make people worse at forming meaningful relationships, while 5% expected improvement and 25% expected neither improvement nor worsening.
These responses describe public opinion. They do not test a matchmaking system or prove what will happen to a relationship. A suggested match can be a starting point for conversation rather than a reason to assume compatibility. Leave space to decide what you value and to learn how another person describes their own expectations.
Keeping Your People in the Loop
The FTC's recommendation to talk with friends or family is especially relevant when an online relationship includes a request for money. You can describe both the connection and the request, rather than feeling you must first prove that something is wrong. The purpose is to hear another perspective on the story and on what is being asked of you.
If someone shares a concern about a possible scam, keep attention on the behavior described rather than judging the person who trusted the profile. Responsibility for deception belongs to the person doing it. Questions about money, a story that does not match a profile photo, or repeated explanations for not meeting can be discussed with care.
Online dating leaves room for interest and caution together. The FTC's concrete warning signs and checks provide a place to start, while the research on app use asks for careful interpretation. Neither a friendly message nor a survey statistic can settle the whole story of a particular connection.