Singletons looking to shack up with their soulmates online have relied on two key routes in the past decade or so: take your chance on dating apps, or befriend as many mutuals as possible on social media, in the hope that you find the one.

But some have found a third way, using services such as Goodreads and Strava to meet partners with whom they hope to spend the rest of their lives. Those couples proved to be trendsetters. So-called hobby apps – built around activites such as running, reading or movie-going – are having a moment, and not just for love.

It’s all part of a broader movement as people grow tired of the “digital town square” offered on Twitter/X and other social media platforms. At a time when many are abandoning Elon Musk’s social network over his attitude to “free speech” (which some see as “amplifying hate”), competing apps such as Bluesky and Threads are having a resurgence in users.

Whereas some users are switching to Twitter replicas, others are seeking refuge in apps that promise to connect them to people with whom they have common interests. Running app Strava has seen user numbers grow 20% in a year, according to digital market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. That success has led it to add a messaging tool for users to keep in touch, alongside documenting their workouts. Knitting social network Ravelry, which is accessed through a number of third-party apps, has more than 9 million users. Goodreads has clocked up more than 150 million members.

Letterboxd, a film completist’s dream app, where you can tick off the latest movies you’ve seen, and review and rate them, alongside other cinephiles and the occasional famous actor or director, has gone from having 1.8 million users worldwide in March 2020 to more than 14 million users this summer. The app has grown its monthly active userbase 55% in a year, according to Sensor Tower.

“We really work hard on the tone and voice of everything we do, from community policy through to editorial through to our social, to guide folks in terms of how we want them to be around Letterboxd,” says Gemma Gracewood, the app’s editor-in-chief. “We talk about movies.”

And that’s refreshing in a world where politics and culture wars are being pushed at us through algorithms. “Social media users have been turning towards niche apps and spaces for a long time,” says Jess Maddox, assistant professor in digital media at the University of Alabama. “Paradoxically, as major platforms such as Twitter/X, YouTube, TikTok and Instagram push more algorithmically curated feeds, users may be less exposed to the content they want to see.”

The cosy nature of hobby apps, and the way they’re set up to share passions and pastimes, means they’re an altogether gentler place than the rough-and-tumble racism you can encounter on X with an errant tap. “It’s a way for people to connect via common interests,” says Dr Carolina Are, a social media researcher at the Centre for Digital Citizens at Northumbria University. It all means that the apps can spend less time, effort and money on content moderation – assuming that civility will be supreme – and instead focus on making the overall experience better.

“The thing about Letterboxd is there isn’t a ‘central town square’ like there is on X; it’s a very single-channel conversation,” says Gracewood. Comments happen in-line – similar to those on the Guardian and Observer websites – meaning that it’s less possible to performatively repost content into a main feed in order to encourage a pile-on. Similar situations exist on platforms such as Goodreads and Strava, where it’s possible to communicate with and message others, but not to publicly shame them easily.

Because hobby apps are nicer places to exist, people spend more time on them – and they can eventually turn into services that are more than advertised. That includes finding like-minded people with whom you’d want to spend your time romantically.

One reason that people may be starting to find love on apps not explicitly designed for that purpose is because the expectations are lower – and as such, the atmosphere is less sexually charged. “Dating apps seem like a dating supermarket, and something you have to do if you want to have some kind of connection,” says Are.

She points out that while dating apps are trying to shed their shallow reputation as places to hook up, they still lead with giant pictures of users to gauge compatibility. “A lot of people are becoming quite disillusioned with the fact you’re judged on looks,” she says. “In general, there is a bit of a disillusionment with platform-facilitated dating culture, because it seems very impersonal. It’s all facilitated by an algorithm. And it seems not to serve people very well.”

Hobby apps’ gain is dating apps’ loss, based on recent financial figures from Match Group, the company that operates the best-known dating services, including Tinder and Hinge. From an October 2021 peak of more than $175 a share, Match is now trading at nearer $36 a share. The firm announced job cuts of 6% in July due to dwindling paying users.

But the rot isn’t limited to the big beasts in the game. An analysis of the top 200 dating and social connection apps by Deutsche Bank – entitled Dating: The Dating Debate – Have We Hit Saturation Levels? – suggests that global downloads have plateaued.

It also helps that hobby apps feel like a more cohesive, kinder community. That’s not just because the people are kinder: Letterboxd has a set of moderators who are tasked with taking a “zero tolerance” approach to overt or coded hate speech, racism, homophobia, white supremacy, transphobia or any other marginalising attitudes.

Letterboxd has fewer than 10 staff moderating content, says Gracewood, and generally they don’t need to intervene often. “I can’t speak to whether we’ve benefited from cultural and mission shifts at other social media platforms, but I can say that from day one, we have always been very, very concerned with what creating a community online looks like, and how to keep it feeling free, good and nice.”

Whether that light-touch approach compared with social media apps – TikTok employs 40,000 content moderators worldwide, while Meta reportedly has 15,000 – will last is yet to be seen. “It seems like every app is born, isn’t moderated, then something bad happens and it gets heavily moderated,” says Are. “So maybe they [hobby apps] will have that trajectory as well.”

• Chris Stokel-Walker is the author of TikTok Boom: China’s Dynamite App and the Superpower Race for Social Media (Canbury Press, £9.99). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply