#WHY REAL LIFE ISN’T LIKE E-LIFE
Our attention spans are getting shorter. I, for one, used to love the brevity of a 140-character tweet but now prefer information reduced to just a hashtag. A quick survey of my friends let me know this feeling is not uncommon. With everything we want available instantaneously, we’re not used to waiting — or processing, for that matter. And with so much of our communication occurring through the remove of our electronic personae, we frequently forget that there are real people behind the profiles. Don’t think for a second that this mentality hasn’t extended into our real-life romances, either.
On a recent date, I kept mentally pulling up a profile page for the guy across the table. I ticked off hobbies as he stated interests, filled in demographic info, alumni connections, highlighted key words and correlated friends in common. What was scary was we hadn’t met via an app: We were set up. When (I thought) it became obvious we weren’t a match, I mentally clicked the “x” in the corner of his profile picture.
Instead of applying real-world behavior to our electronic lives, many of us end up doing the opposite. It’s not surprising since the language of the appisphere has already entered the cultural lexicon. The Tinder term “swipe left” was added to Urban Dictionary in 2014, and the ability to cavalierly dismiss another human being, as the term suggests, has become commonplace. But whether we realize it or not, that attitude is as harmful to the swiper as it is to the swipee. I narrowed down what I see as the worst e-world infractions beginning to seep into our real lives. Here are my top five offenders:
1. Not making it past the profile picture
One quick glance and our finger is already in motion, ready to swipe left onto the next contender. In the interest of efficiency we inefficiently rely on appearance, completely neglecting all the in-person elements of attraction that sometimes take a minute to work their magic.
2. Singling out tags without reading the text
Have you ever had a conversation with a person where you felt like they were only paying close enough attention to identify a few key words? It’s the aural communication equivalent of someone who skims over a dating profile looking for hyper-linked subjects. Whatever happened to context? Humanity can not live by bullet points alone.
3. Filtering your prospects to the point of banality
Sure, we all have certain “types,” but when your real dating life has as many demographic filters as your dating apps, take a minute and consider that you might be single because you’re not open to the possibility of being with 99.9 percent of the population. This is called “only dating” — as in that person at every party who says, “I only date ___ men/women.” “Only dating” is not a complimentary term.
4. Impersonalization
There’s always been resistance to reducing people to simple stats and categories, but now we’re living in an age when we not only do this to ourselves, it’s an intrinsic part of how we see one another. When you view someone in real life as just another user profile, it’s time to take a break from dating until the headlines and sidebars separate from your eyes.
5. Swiping way too soon
App culture is the land of convenience and speed; dating is not. The seven seconds it takes to accomplish something on a mobile app needs to be multiplied, then slowed to match our real-life tempo. Leave concerns over fast connections to your Wi-Fi provider. If we can slow down and think before swiping or making snap judgments, maybe we can break some of these habits in both realms of our lives.