Has Social Media Ruined Dating?

The magic of meeting someone in the wild and falling head over heels has been replaced by dating apps and social media. In today’s media landscape, it is our responsibility to ensure that we are using social media in a kind and thoughtful way.

Social media has become a dating marketplace for users, with women often being more heavily subjected to societal expectations like beauty standards. Posting online can feel like a constant performance, where we try to figure out what photo will get the most likes or make us look the coolest or hottest.

“I feel like social media is generally a negative place for women,” said Mila Flahive, an art major at the University of Utah. “People who are going viral on social media are usually skinny and conventionally attractive, and it’s hard for women to meet that standard.”

Not only that, but men expect women to look and act a certain way based on the women they see on social media. However, the photos and videos that these women post are usually highly edited, posed and unrepresentative of women at large.

“Social media has definitely had a negative impact on self-image and is taken into consideration often when it comes to appearance and how I represent myself,” said Hannah Beeman, an MSU nursing major. “It is easy to become insecure comparing yourself to models who pop up, especially since many of them use intense editing and posing.”

That’s not to say that this doesn’t go both ways. Do I judge men based on their online profiles and online behavior? Definitely. But why have we allowed it to become this way?

When dating becomes an online activity instead of an in-person one, we rob ourselves of the opportunity to develop long-lasting, meaningful connections. Social media and similar online platforms, like dating apps, have also made people less willing to put themselves out there in the real world.

“With the rise of online dating, people are making dating decisions based on physical attraction and looks instead of personality and other factors,” Flahive said.

Social media can also portray unrealistic standards about what a relationship should look like. When relationships are presented online, we are only seeing tiny snippets of someone’s life. These portrayals only reveal what a person has chosen to share and are not representative of the whole picture.

“Relationships ebb and flow; there’s lots of different components to it,” said J. Mitchell Vaterlaus, a human development and community health professor at MSU. “You have to have conflict in order to progress, and meaningful solutions to that conflict. So, you just don’t get to see the whole story.”

When we are viewing the relationships of others through the lens of social media, it is easy to compare them to our own relationships and think about how our partners might be falling short of our expectations.

“I do think that social media, especially Instagram and TikTok, have created an expectation or vision for what we think a relationship should be like, which aren’t always very realistic. I think social media has contributed to some unrealistic standards in dating and appearance,” Beeman said.

On the other hand, social media and dating apps can be a positive space for some, and successful relationships have been formed through them.

“I met my boyfriend through a dating app, but that was after swiping through many profiles and getting to know other people who ultimately didn’t have the same intentions, or ended up having a misrepresented vibe comparing their profile to real life,” Beeman said. “I think if you use it the right way, are cautious and weed people out who want something different, it is a nice way to meet people.”

Others shared Beeman’s views. “I honestly don’t think that technology is bad and I don’t think social media is bad and I don’t think it’s bad for relationships,” Vaterlaus said. “I think it’s how people use technology that makes it bad for relationships.”

“I would say that what we have done since the beginning of social media is that we have a small percentage of people [who] have deviant behaviors and then we generalize it to all users,” he said “And I think that’s what we have to be careful of, because if we demonize it, then we aren’t talking about how to use it in productive or healthy ways.”

It is our responsibility to monitor our own social media and dating app usage to ensure that we are being kind and thoughtful users. These platforms were not designed to make us healthier and happier humans, so we must be conscious of our use.

“Be thoughtful now in your dating relationships, so you can be thoughtful in your married relationships,” Vaterlaus said.