Technology Is Ruining Dating, Not Making It Better

Technology has made dating easier and less intimidating in many ways, but it’s also made the experience way more complicated than it already is. In fact, for all the upsides of online dating, I’d still say that technology has pretty much ruined dating for millennials.

  1. Apps makes things way too easy, and not in a good way. Dating has lost its excitement. Gone are the days that you spend a month cycling your dating proposal over and over again in your head until you gather up the courage to finally ask your crush out. In 2017, all it takes is a couple clicks and you’ve got a hottie’s phone number. The fact that it’s so easy to get a date makes going on one way less exciting than it used to be.
  2. It’s turning it into a chore. When I ask my friends if they have any dates lined up, they kinda give a labored, “Yeah…” as they kinda sigh and roll their eyes. Since online dates end up failing more often than not, having a date lined up isn’t necessarily a good thing because chances are, the guy you’ve randomly selected through a quick swipe isn’t going to be the “perfect match.” At this point, it feels more like something we HAVE to do more than something we actually WANT to do.
  3. I feel like I’m only getting half of my date’s attention. When we DO eventually go on a date, I always end up feeling like the guy I’m with is more interested in looking at his phone than he is in me. Our phones are addictive and they’re giving us ADD. I even find myself unable to focus for long periods since I’m constantly interrupting my train of thought with Facebook updates. The second one person whips out their phone, the conversation dies and it makes for a super lame dating experience.
  4. It’s making it easier to cheat. Cheating has never been easier than it is today. If you’re thinking about being unfaithful to your partner, all you have to do is log onto a dating app and there will be tons of people willing to help you cheat. It’s a super discrete way to get an affair set up and we can do it with someone far outside of our friend circle so no one will find out. It’s actually scary how easy it is.
  5. We flake out of relationships more often. Knowing that there are tons of people waiting for us on a dating app gives our current relationships less value. We know that if things don’t work out, there are plenty of options out there. Why put in work to fix a relationship when we can just drop it and move onto the next one with a single click?
  6. Dating apps have taught us to be shallow. The thing I hate most about dating apps is that they’re all about appearance. It’s impossible to tell if someone’s a good person or not based on what they look like and the few words they’ve written about themselves. Going through potential matches turns us into mean, judgmental bullies and I really don’t like how shallow it’s made our generation.
  7. We get caught in an endless spiral of texting that leads nowhere. Technology is supposed to make dating more efficient, yet it’s managed to make things even worse. Just because we find our “perfect match” doesn’t mean it’s going to actually come to anything. We put each other in a text-purgatory “just in case” and end up having a relationship exclusively through messages and never even go on a date. It’s made dating a huge time waster.
  8. It has killed chivalry. When we have the safety of being behind a phone or computer screen, there’s no limit to how rude or insensitive we can be to each other. Guys especially will feel free to make sexist remarks or blatant requests for sex that would be beyond rude in real life but they seem to feel totally fine with doing it online. Before texting and dating apps, guys had to actually control themselves when speaking to a woman but now that’s totally out the window.
  9. We can just Google our date’s name and know everything about them. I never do this personally, but I know a lot of people who will scour the internet for info about their date before they meet them. Now that all of our info is online, people can know every single aspect of your life, making it hard to put your best self forward if you have a sketchy past. Just one more way technology has made dating a little worse.
  10. We’ve got blinders on. When we’re out and about, our mind is subconsciously focused on our phone or dating app. When we see someone we like, it doesn’t occur to us to ask them out because we don’t have to. I mean, why put ourselves out there and potentially get rejected and emotionally traumatized when we can do it safely from the comfort of our screens? The thing is, our soulmate could be walking by and we’ll never know because our minds are somewhere else.
Jennifer is a playwright, dancer, and theatre nerd living in the big city of Toronto, Canada. She studied Creative Writing at Concordia University and works as a lifestyle writer who focuses on Health, B2B, Tech, Psychology, Science, Food Trends and Millennial Life. She's also a coreographer, playwright, and lyricist, with choreography credits for McMaster University’s “Spring Awakening,” “Roxanne” for the Guelph Contemporary Dance Festival, and “The Beaver Den” for The LOT, among others.

You can see more of her work on her Contently page and follow her on Instagram @jenniferenchin.
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