The 1975 may have said it the best in their new song, "Love It If We Made It," when they proclaimed the statement "modernity has failed us". Now don't get me wrong – I, just like any other adolescent on their phone, love going for midnight fast-food runs and incessantly tweeting the random and unnecessary thoughts that pop into my head. I might as well personify a modern-day millennial with how often I post on social media and the control technology has over almost every aspect of my life.
I say "almost" because the one arena in which Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter holds absolutely zero precedences over my choices is dating.
Aside from jokingly downloading Tinder a time or two during overnight debate trips or catfishing people on OkCupid when I was in middle school with my friends, I've never really been interested in the realm of online dating. Even though my love life has been relatively dry throughout my eighteen years, I've always felt as though the best way to forge and navigate a romantic connection isn't from somebody you met through an app, and this isn't because apps like Tinder or Bumble are notorious among baby boomers as "hookup apps". It's because I firmly believe that the premise of online dating isn't the most genuine form of connection one can have.
People always put their best foot forward on social media. I look at my own Instagram and I see rows of concerts, vacations, and highlights from my high school career against a backdrop of Idaho sunsets and the occasional quote or artsy shot. My Facebook forces you to view me through rose-colored glasses. In reality, I've only been to a few concerts that were planned last-minute, my vacations are really school trips where I didn't get to spend the majority of my time exploring Japan or lounging outside in Florida, and my high school career will never be considered a highlight in the grand scheme of my life. Why would it be any different with Tinder? When people are searching for love, of course, they're going to include the pictures that make them seem the most appealing.
Whether it be FaceTuning that one selfie to the point that it renders you almost unrecognizable, or an overly-altruistic bio that makes people really think you are somehow a successful entrepreneur and film director at 22, dating apps help people hide behind a mask of who they truly are. This can lead to many issues further on in a relationship – take, for example, someone who may end up in an abusive relationship because of lies established on a site like Bumble and didn't seem fishy after a few dates.
The culture of "swiping" isn't necessarily the root cause of an increase in divorce rates or delayed marriages, but it does lead to an increase in ego.
In a study cited in Psychology Today, people reported joining Tinder in search of a romantic relationship almost as much as they reported joining it seeking self-validation. Websites like this are an ego boost, and sometimes, an unhealthy one, as people often aren't clear about their intentions upon signing up. However, those who don't match as frequently with others or use the app with minimal success may feel rejected.
This doesn't just include heterosexual people, either. According to Michael Hobbes for the Huffington Post in 2017, gay men struggle with a fear of rejection from growing up in the closet. Hookup apps such as Tinder, Grindr, and other websites can drag them into a world of hard drugs, bad choices, and risky sex because they're so scared of being rejected by not only their partners but by the community. When LGBT individuals, specifically gay men as the article writes, experience rejection from a potential partner it feels like rejection from the entire community's friendship and rejection from ever being able to find love.
I've heard of Tinder success stories, and even popular influencers such as Shane Dawson have forged romance over Bumble. But for someone like me who falls in love with personality over persona, neither seem like an appealing prospect. Fostering a healthy relationship based on genuine human contact versus whether or not they caught my eye in a pool of other 18 to 22-year-old singles within a fifty-mile radius of me sounds a whole heck of a lot better and more rewarding. Maybe The 1975 was right, and the issues associated with dating apps are part of the reason that modernity has failed us.
