The Era of Digitisation has given the world a whole new dimension. The radical shift of the world into a digital plane has transformed the way people eat, sleep, drink, think, and even breathe!! People have easily accepted the new change, which has upped the level of comfort in their lives! Even the way people interact with each other has changed. It has definitely brought the world closer than before, but…. it has also brought many scourges in disguise with it!
Forget eating, forget thinking, forget talking…. Dating itself has gone digital today!! The evolved internet has made online dating so palpable, that people are crawling their way through thousands of online dummies to actually find that ‘One Real Dummy’! It wouldn’t be correct to say that it has not provided people with satisfaction, it definitely has! Only, a momentary one! It is the phenomenon of instant gratification experienced by people trying to find matches online, making the whole online dating game a very rewarding process.
A study shows that 92% of young adults use social media. So it is apparent that the internet has become the straightforward and effortless platform for finding love. Over the course of time, online intimacy has grown vastly. With the presence of thousands of people online, even the tiniest bit of information can lead us to sexual and romantic hookups these days. Dating apps have started to change the frontier of the whole scheme of finding love. The modern generation always have an urge of experiencing temporary fun, which results in fickle relationships! The 21st century has seen a rise in speed daters switching from bar hookups to hookups through dating apps/websites. Not to be cynical, but Tinder has got people swiping left and right in search of a sexual encounter or love just like the overly compulsive Charles Freck!!
A study by the University of Utah suggested that people may actually find it too difficult to meet their soulmate through dating apps. These apps and websites use artificial intelligence and algorithms to determine which individual would be most desirable for another individual. In a talk given by a developmental psychologist, Dr. Michelle Drouin “50 years ago, researchers researched why relationships persisted. They found out that couple stuck to each other because there were lesser options of getting distracted or getting temporary fun in those days. With online dating becoming the landscape of communication between two people today, they tend to have more and more options for them! We are continually evaluating the quality of alternatives around us!”
Another truth why people find online intimacy and online emotional “value” so interesting and real is because the internet gives them the advantage of time. When engaging in emotional conversations through the internet, people have the ease of crafting the message because they have a lot of time in hand. People always try to be intellectually smarter and more intimate with other people online. This is particularly true with teenagers and young adults experiencing online intimacy. The traditional fashion of two people actually meeting up face to face and having a conversation with the motive of finding love has vanished!!
Clinical Psychologist Dr. Wendy Wash claims, “we’re not programmed to be exposed to so many sexual opportunities. We are also programmed to be really excited about a new (sexual) opportunity because it used to be rare. So put those two together and you see now that that’s why there is an explosion of online dating !!!”
Facts and research tell us that people marrying by dating online do not last as a couple for many years. It has put marriages in an insecure position for thousands of couples. There is also psychological phenomenon backing up this fact called “the paradox of choice” which states why people with more choices are indecisive about any kind of decision. It also states the reason why more is less!
With time, humans have evolved and have obtained a never-saturating gut for dating and sexual encounters. It’s never easy to say that an individual has found the perfect soulmate in an online app or website, which merely uses codes and programs to match people. Finding true love requires more than that! More than a temporary state of mind! More than just similar likes and preferences!
True love comes as a blessing! Not as an app notification!
