People killed by lightning

As the online dating industry has grown into a multi-billion-dollar enterprise, fewer Americans have been killed by lightning, a correlation that suggests either that finding love online keeps people safely indoors during storms or that both metrics are simply measuring the migration of human activity from the physical world to the digital one. The coefficient is -0.870 across seventeen years, during which swiping right became normal and being struck by lightning became rarer, and the chart connecting them had all the romantic energy of an actuarial table.

Online dating revenue grew from about 1.5 billion to over 5 billion dollars between 2006 and 2022 as apps like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge made meeting strangers on the internet not just acceptable but standard. Lightning deaths declined from about 48 to 11 per year, driven by better weather warnings and the decline of outdoor work. Both trends measure the same underlying shift: Americans spending more time indoors and online. The smartphone delivers both the weather alert that keeps you inside and the dating app that keeps you swiping, and the net effect is fewer people standing in open fields during thunderstorms and more people sitting on couches evaluating profile photos.

Seventeen years of dating apps and lightning safety is a correlation that captures the indoor migration of American life. The dates happen online, the storms happen outside, and the gap between the two grows wider every year. Love moves indoors, lightning stays outdoors, and the smartphone mediates between them with algorithmic indifference. Swipe right to survive.