Most of our lives are now online, whether we like it or not. Obviously school and work for a lot of us is now just sitting in front of a screen for hours. Then we go home and unwind by staring at a smaller screen for hours and turning off our brains. We have been told that the overuse of the internet has ruined many parts of life, but we should ask: Has being online ruined love?
Older generations tell us all cute love stories about how they found their soulmate just in school one day and have been together ever since, but it is very hard to find stories like that these days. I, as well as many internet critics, believe that being online has given us too much information to form true, meaningful relationships.
With the internet you are able to see more than just outside your door. Social media shows you people you were never meant to know existed and dating apps have you meeting people you were never supposed to meet. With this unlimited access to information, fear comes with it. If you meet someone new, you have to make the decision if you want to make the first move and do the horrifying action of touching a screen to follow someone’s Instagram. If I am being honest, that is so stupid and so scary, just as stupid and scary as trying to perfectly time sending a text.
A lot of our time on the internet is spent learning what other people think, which just amounts to finding things to compare our lives to and be jealous of. Last time I was scrolling, I had back to back videos of someone my age happily married and saying marrying out of college is the best idea, and then another video of someone explaining how staying single is the best choice you can make. While it can be nice seeing what other people your age are doing, you then have these “ideals” that influence your decisions more than you sometimes believe.
Online there are so many rules, opinions, and concepts considered a norm about love and relationships that you feel like you have to follow. Soon you realize that they are all contradictory and impossible to follow. If we were not online, we would have to just go and do it, but now we have too much time to think.
