Dating in the 21st century sucks, especially in college. Traditional dating and relationships seem to have been replaced by hookup culture and the situationship epidemic, largely attributing to the emergence of online dating apps like Tinder and Hinge as well as social media platforms in general. These apps have ultimately altered how we form connections and what we value in our relationships.
Dating apps like Tinder and Hinge have contributed to the popularity of hookup culture, over building long-term relationships. The apps encourage the judgment of the people we are potentially dating simply on their physical appearance.
Instead of meeting people organically and forming raw connections, finding a partner has turned into something that resembles a job interview process. While this may be efficient, it is not necessarily romantic in the way that most people imagine meeting their future spouse.
Social media, in particular Snapchat, has also shifted how we communicate with each other and in turn the types of relationships we form with each other. A large part of this is the added resources and features that these apps add that feed into our overthinking and insecure minds.
Whether it is checking snap scores to overthink about if they’re snapping other people or if they are only responding to you (because if they are only responding to me that is obviously a declaration of love and can only mean that they really like me) and obsessively keeping tabs on their Snapmaps locations and when they were last active (because if they were active five minutes ago but I have been on delivered for 10 that obviously means that they hate me and decided they do not like me anymore).
Taking our spot on their best friends list as a legitimate measurement of how much we mean to them (because obviously being #1 on their best friends list means a lot more than any actual date they could ask me on). We have all found ourselves falling victim to these features every once in a while. Even if we know all it does is feed into our anxieties.
These added anxieties and worries that social media has given our generation have only fed into the current relationship culture and why so many people dating have found it harder to form deep and meaningful connections.
Even if you do form these deep connections, the harder part seems to be committing and taking it to the next level. This is where we often see “situationships” emerge.
Now don’t get VALLEY wrong, we do not need to go out declaring that true love is dead and there is no hope left for any of us. While we can resent the internet for changing relationships and how we view romance in these ways, we also can’t help but remain optimistic about love.
We can even appreciate how the internet in some ways has enhanced how we form relationships with each other. We all appreciate Tinder as a fun little game that you can download on your phone, regardless of whether you never message a single person or end up meeting someone you really like. We can appreciate how these apps can cause us to connect with and meet people that we never would have otherwise.
So, has the internet truly killed romance? It may not have killed it, but it has definitely shifted the ways that we view romance and the ways that we approach it in our own lives.
What do you think? Is traditional romance dead? Let VALLEY know by tweeting @VALLEYmag on X!
