The internet is in constant development; everyday new means
of connecting with people across the world are invented. As we have become more
invested in the Internet’s capabilities, it has worked its way into various
aspects of our lives such as school, work, and family. What I find interesting
is how the Internet impacts relationships and dating. Here’s a quick poll I
made you can take:
TAKE THIS POLL!
Social media has enabled us to learn more about those we are
interested in (family, friends, significant others, crushes etc.) It connects
us to our peers, allowing us to distribute personal information to a mass
audience of our choosing. We can post
photos of our most recent trip, share a funny experience; state our opinions,
likes and dislikes. Often, these are small details about our lives we may not
feel compelled to bring up in conversations with our friends because they may
or may not care. Social media saves us the time of meeting with every friend
daily or repeatedly sharing the same details of our lives with different people.
On the flipside social media enables everyone to become a private
investigator. It is natural that people want to share their opinions, funny
stories and thoughts with others. Yet, social media seems to encourage a new
extent of sharing. There’s the showing of too much skin, sharing personal
relationship or sexual details, venting via social media, and much more. No one
needs to invade your privacy when you’ve made your once private life public. With
so much information aggregated into one place, crushing on someone can easily
become stalking. You can find out where
they ate lunch, their past love interests, family, friends, and basically
experience the past years of their life as though you were actually there.
When you finally do meet up with the hottie you’ve been
crushing on from behind your computer screen, what’s left to talk about if they’re
a frequent user of social media? Mostly everything they’re going to tell you
you’ve already read on their profile page and recent updates. And what happens when you want to make things “Facebook
official” and they don’t want to do the same? Should you have each others’
passwords? Is it valid to bring up that they’ve been chatting with their ex too
much? Social media adds a new aspect to dating and relationships. And although
it may be easier to connect with those you may not have been able to before, do
the potential difficulties it brings to dating and relationships outweigh the
convenience?
What do you all think?
