The Changing Face of Dating
Sarah L.
With Valentine’s Day fast approaching, we see how thoroughly we’ve internalized the message that we must have someone — anyone — to celebrate with. And with the rise of digital media to solve every problem and meet every need, people are experimenting with drastically different ways to find that “true love.”
Finding someone face-to-face has now become somewhat of a rarity, whether its a blind date your friend set up or if you finally got the nerve to talk to the cute person sitting next to you. Now, more often then not, the “how we met” stories all revolve around the internet. Online dating sites and apps, and even Instagram and Snapchat, have made it as easy as the swipe of a finger to meet the 100% “perfect person” for you, even if that means you may go weeks or even months talking to them without ever meeting in real life or knowing if they are, in fact, real.
Of course there are some downfalls to this way of connecting. The Internet has become a haven for criminals and pedophiles and even just plain old immoral, bored jerks to target their unsuspecting victims, either by catfishing or just withholding the key information needed to understand they’re not really who they say they are. But everyone still seems to think that the risk is worth it if they actually can find their “soulmate” whom they probably would have never even known existed without the help of their iPhone or computer.
But, of course, not every social media site should be grouped together. Many actually do help improve communication and make it easier to meet new people they would have never talked to because they aren’t involved in the same activities as them or go to a completely different school, especially for high schoolers who are still limited with where they can go to meet new people. Also with apps such as Instagram and Snapchat it is harder for online predators to target teenagers because of the ability to set your account on private and block others who make you uncomfortable. Having pictures be the main purpose of these social media apps increasingly helps weed out the predators because the tech savvy youth of today will notice unusual pattern of posting, like never posting pictures of themselves or posting pictures that are more likely than not fake or Photoshopped.
However, this shouldn’t cause you to hide your inner hopeless romantic because with every bad date or interaction there may be numerous good ones that make all your efforts worth it.
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