Used correctly, technology can be a great way to meet people. You can mingle, date, hookup, find love or find friends through the various sites and apps that promote their ability to find someone — anyone — for you.
The trend of meeting people through technology is widespread. New, more niche sites are appearing each year, such as Christian Mingle and Phoenix Singles (or even Farmers Only), each claiming to have just the person for you. Among the newest dating methods is Twine, an app looking to go against the superficiality of other dating apps that focus mainly on photos and appearance.
With Twine, users are matched up to three people each day based on common interests, and users’ photos are kept hidden from their potential matches until a conversation has ensued.
But another dating app that builds relationships solely through technology doesn’t necessarily ensure longevity. In all its efforts to bring people together, technology keeps people apart.
The cell phone is a heavily used technology, and meeting people through apps is more prevalent since the innovation of tools like Twine, Grindr and Snapchat. These can hinder relationship building.
Snapchat can be a cheater’s paradise. You send off a quick selfie or receive a “fun” picture from someone, and then it’s gone in seconds, erasing all evidence of the interaction (I bet Anthony Weiner could have benefited from this).
With Grindr, an app for gay men, you can easily meet up with someone in close proximity. The app gives the distance of one user from another, acting like a homing beacon: “Beep beep beep. Found you!”
Deception is made simple and these apps are undoubtedly utilized as such. Here’s a tip: If you’re in a relationship, and your partner takes a long time to reply to your texts, there could be scandals afoot, according to a study out of Brigham Young University.
The study found that messages with lies take 10 percent longer on average to write than an honest one. Without the face-to-face interaction, it’s harder to detect the lie, though people only detect 54 percent of the lies told to them in person.
Face-to-face, we have just above half a chance to catch someone lying but through a text message, we’re easily stumped, because the sender has time to carefully recompose the tired “have to work late” text into something convincing.
Dishonesty and insecurity thrive through the text message.
For those who are merely looking for friendship, Facebook suggests new ones all the time. In 2012, the average Facebook user had 229 friends. According to a study released from the University of Michigan, “The more (the participants of the study) used Facebook over two weeks, the more their life satisfaction levels declined over time.”
The study showed that in the end, people felt less sociable after significant time on Facebook.
You log on to Facebook to see idealized pictures of friends having fun, going on vacations, getting accepted to universities and getting married, all of which are things you are not at the moment doing — because you’re on Facebook.
This act of passively consuming the social events of others, of which we are all guilty, is what makes us unhappy and less likely to socialize.
It is great for socializing with close friends, and I’m sure there are the stories of those who found love through Facebook – that’s how my sister met her husband – but first you have to trudge through the psychological deterrents and the shallowness of the relationships built solely through the social media site.
Technology is a general boon to the world but relying on it to build your relationships, whether social or romantic, will generally only allow you to construct shallow bonds.
Go out and meet new people. Don’t rely on technology to get you out there.
Reach the columnist at kwrenick@asu.edu or follow him at @kwrenick
