Disclaimer: I am extremely grateful to live in a time of such acceptance and progressiveness (though we still have a long way to go), but there are several traditions from older generations that I can’t help but wish didn’t die when us millennials were born. In my opinion, our generation lacks something that previous generations had: sincerity. Nothing we do is genuine anymore.
Back in the olden days, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth (if you're reading this mom and dad, I'm totally kidding), my mother and father met (thank God, because now I’m here!) My dad had asked my mom on their very first date, and he embarrassingly didn’t know her last name. He did, however, know her phone number. So, he looked through the entire phone book until he matched her number with her last name. He could have given up and given in, but he kept searching until he finally reached the letter R. Nowadays, we could find this information in seconds. Via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., we can know everything about the person we are interested in, before we even meet. Even worse, we can know everything about the other person’s exes before we even meet. Nothing is a mystery anymore. There is no element of surprise. Facebook displays our likes, dislikes, thoughts, pictures of friends, essentially everything about us. I want the excitement of getting to know somebody, going in blind, and "going steady". I know you may roll your eyes when I say “chivalry is dead” but I do believe the art of dating is slowly and sadly morphing into “Netflix and chill.”
Maybe I grew up on too many sappy 80’s movies, and I know for a fact I was blessed with parents who are clearly in love, but this doesn’t change the fact that there is something missing from our generation. To prove we went out and had a good time, we have to have over 100 likes on Instagram. We spend hours taking the perfect picture, and even longer choosing the best filter to display this “perfect” image. We always know what our friends are up to because it is proudly displayed on our Snapchat stories. No moment can simply be enjoyed.
How often have you been in the company of good friends, when you look around and realize every single one of you are scrolling away on your iPhones? We are losing the art of conversation. It is so easy to text 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, because we can literally edit and perfect what we want to say to somebody. We have become lazy as a generation. I wish I lived in a generation where a phone call or a letter were the best ways of communication. We have become impersonal and insincere.
To those of you who don't let social media dictate your happiness- I applaud you. For those who do, I empathize. And I also challenge you, put down your phone. Go outside, enjoy nature. Stop obsessing over how many likes your latest picture got; we should post things for our own happiness, not to prove it to others. Life is too short to be spent obsessing over "likes" and over-analyzing text messages. So go on a date, take a walk in the park, go out to dinner, read a book... the options are limitless.
