Love in the Digital Age: The Commodification of Intimacy
Love is something the majority of people yearn for. This yearning leads to searching, and that searching leads to either success or what feels like being stuck in a cycle of predetermined failure. With the introduction of the internet, and likewise social media, there have come new and ever-evolving ways to continue the search. Some methods are more effective than others, but it all comes down to how you interact with technology, how you see yourself, and how you interact with others.
How does the way you engage with social media affect your relationships?
If you use social media a healthy amount, then it can have a relatively positive effect. Social media helps you keep in contact with the people you love. You have easy access to talk to your partner throughout your respective busy days. You can cheer them up by sending them a funny meme you saw or a video of a cute cat making biscuits. Long-distance couples especially benefit from the existence of social media, because although they can’t easily see each other physically, they can at least send each other photos of themselves and videos of the world around them to make them feel closer.
The ease of communication, however, is both a blessing and a curse. People who have a more anxious view of relationships may get a sense of FOMO if they excessively use social media: Why isn’t my friend group as cool as theirs? Why doesn’t my partner tag me on their story like that? We’ve all been guilty of this train of thought in one way or another. These thought patterns can not only create a fabricated void in your heart but can also distract you from the love that’s already in front of you. Everyone has different love languages that they most value, but regardless of who you are, quality time is still immensely important. You can’t enjoy quality time with your partner or friends if you’re too focused on other people’s lives.
Is it Tinder or is it me?
Online dating used to be viewed as unusual, high-risk and only for the chronically forlorn. Over the years it has become increasingly normalized to the point that you can now shamelessly tell people that you met someone from a dating app. This is especially the case for LGBTQ people. Although they face more harassment than heterosexual people, dating apps make it easier for queer people to explore their identity and meet other single people in a relatively safe environment. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that 28 percent of surveyed married queer people found their current partner through online dating. That doesn’t mean, however, that it’s smooth sailing for everyone.
Across all social media platforms, and on dating apps specifically, there is a constant nagging question in the back of your mind while looking through profiles about whether what you’re seeing is an authentic representation of someone. Instagram started out as just a place to post heavily filtered photos of your dog or a poorly lit picture of your coffee with the caption “#mood,” but in the years since, it has become a site for carefully curated public personas.
This phenomenon has also trickled onto dating apps. How else are you going to set yourself apart from the millions of other people on the app if you don’t post the hottest possible pictures of yourself that also make you look interesting and fun? It can seem like there are countless singles in your area looking for love, but the manufactured abundance can become exhausting. When there are so many perceived options, you feel like you have to compromise on what you want in order to appear desirable to potential suitors.
Every queer femme has experienced swiping through Tinder trying to find other femmes, when lo and behold, you’re met with an overabundance of heterosexual couples looking for a third in order to “try something new.” Or you match with a lot of people and the conversation doesn’t progress past, “OMG, you’re so pretty!” And for men, Grindr can be an objectifying, fatphobic digital hellscape full of faceless men.
Swipe Right to Save Me From Existential Dread
This all makes online dating, and frankly, modern dating in general, sound quite bleak, but there are always exceptions to the norm and people do end up finding someone to love, for better or for worse. Who can we blame for the desert that is online dating? Do we blame the app developers, seeing as these apps are literally designed for you to continue using them? Or do we blame each other for losing motivation while on these apps and ignoring the messages we receive?
I would say that the design of the apps is more to blame for prioritizing looks over substance. From personal experience, you have to exert a lot of effort and take a lot of time and consideration to find at least one person that you think you would be compatible with. This curated form of dating that was supposed to make it significantly easier has actually made the process somewhat harder.
So, is the bleak dating scene social media’s fault? Yes and no. What’s missing? Well, if we’re going to commodify our human need for companionship, then we need fewer hookup apps and more apps for making friends, community building and longterm relationships.