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It seems that since the beginning of modern technology people have believed the purpose of these technological innovations were to connect us with other people. Therefore, it should be no surprise that technology had been used like we use it now as a method of romance or dating. The second chapter in the novel, When Old Technologies Were New: Thinking about Electric Communication in the Late Nineteenth Century (1988) writes of how, “New forms of technology created unprecedented opportunities not only for courting, but for infidelity” (70). We have always had this understanding that the technological innovations we have developed put us in a private sphere, privy to only us, when in fact it does the opposite. So it should be no surprise that people use technology as a medium to accomplish private and intimate things like dating and infidelity because individuals feel as if they are anonymous and protected behind the technological mediums they use. Even today we use Google’s search engine to ask things we may not necessarily feel comfortable asking another person. On a more extreme level, people even make fake social media profiles to talk to other people they feel they have no chance with in “real life”.
On the other side of the spectrum, we have now developed apps and websites intended to make dating more transparent. By having users create profiles and listing their hobbies, likes and dislikes, dating is supposed to have become more easy. But we have to ask ourselves the question of whether or not technology actually brings us closer to other people because it in fact eliminates a whole human element of face to face contact some would beg is necessary to create and maintain relationships.
Posted from Course Blogs by Shayla B.