He pulls into the driveway with his dad’s 1961 Ford Falcon, nervous to say the least. He rings the doorbell at exactly 6:30 p.m. and, as expected, he waits for her in the living room talking with her parents about the evening he has planned. They have dinner reservations at 7 and he will have her home no later than 10 o’clock. She walks down the stairs and he stands from his seat. He opens the front door and shakes her father’s hand before taking hers to walk back to his car.
Today, he drives up the street that her house is on. Car still running, he brakes in front of her house and texts “Here”. Five minutes later, she walks out the front door, down the driveway, gets into the front seat of his car, and off they go.
The norms and expectations placed on young adults today in the dating world have changed drastically with the increased use of social media and technology. Gone are the days where Friday nights were reserved for dinners and dancing and courting, left to be nothing more than stories shared by today’s generation of grandparents. Instead, we use different forms of social media to ‘hint’ that we are interested and rely heavily on text messaging for the majority of our communication with those we are planning to pursue.
In just the span of eight years, the percent of young adults using social media (age 18-29) has increased from 9 percent in February 2005 to 90 percent in September 2013. This rise in social media use has consequently increased the importance that is placed on these social media forums with respect to dating. As a result, in person conversations are dwindling and ‘favorites’ and ‘retweets’ on twitter are becoming the new romantic.
But why is this transition of dating norms considered a negative one? Arguably, the importance placed on social media during the courtship of a relationship also transcends into the success of the relationship as it progresses. In latent terms, the more significance you place on social media, the more nonsense there is to fight about. Arguments that never existed twenty years ago are now ending long term relationships. Likes on Instagram, favorites on Twitter, misinterpreted text messages, and unacceptable ‘best friends’ on snap chat are undoubtably causing mistrust in otherwise perfectly solid relationships. Boyfriends liking other girls’ Instagram pictures and girlfriends retweeting the wrong song lyrics have become major topics of conversation among teenagers and young adults in relationships.
As if social media was not creating enough mistrust in young relationships, 12 percent out of the 90 percent of adult population who own cell phones, use their smartphones to “check in” on their loved ones’ current locations. Constant communication and known whereabouts are creating more problems that would not have existed had not been for technology and social media. These new aspects of modern relationships are definitely not healthy because the other person in the relationship should not need to know where their significant other is at all times in order to trust them. Trust in a relationship is built on faith, honest communication, and understanding. Text messages, social media, and “sharing current locations indefinitely” are none of those.
Bottom line: our relationships are a compilation of the things we place importance on in our lives. So every once in a while, put down the phone, don’t get worked up about a tweet, call instead of text, and go on a date without posting a picture.
