Jake Jackson, wearing his usual outfit consisting of a hoodie (one size too big) and flannel pajama pants (portraying his uncaring persona) was internally melting as he walked over to his longtime hallway crush Dana Dalloway. He had prepared all night on the phone with his friends, who were in the corner of the hallway currently hyping him up. He gathered his pride, tapped her on the shoulder as she was talking to her friends, and said the five magic words: “Can I get your snap?” He shoots, he scores, three months later, after a rigorous talking stage, their “relationship” leveled up into a “situationship”! Followed up two months later with their totally unexpected break up.
Jake Jackson and Dana Dalloway aren’t real people but their relationship process is one you can find duplicated amongst teenagers all over the world. Thanks to social media networks like Snapchat and Instagram, teenagers are being stripped of the privilege that is learning how to hold a real relationship.
In the Middle Ages, knights would joust to impress the persons they desired. In the 18th Century the idea of courting was popularized. Courtship is defined as a period where couples get to know each other prior to marriage or any type of close committed relationship. Through this period of getting to know each other both parties would communicate through different mediums like love letters and the recently scarce in-person conversation.
Derived from courting, the less strict process of finding love was now labeled “Dating.” In the 1980s, if one wanted to go out on a date with someone he or she would use a phone book, find the phone number or address of their love interest, and give them the respect of verbally asking them out. Some even went so far as to ask their lovers’ parents if they could take them out.
In the 2010s, with the rise of social networking, dates started being derived from “DMs”. Dating apps like Tinder, Hinge, and Bumble were used by adults to find love from near and far. Meanwhile lonely teenagers mingled on the only sites where they were not age restricted: Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, and Discord. While these relationships soothed that lonely pit in the hearts of teens worldwide there was one issue; the relationships were dependent on WiFi.
If Jake’s snap score increased by one, he was cheating. If Dana left Jake on read, she hated him. If Jake’s second cousin twice removed followed him on Instagram that was his long lost lover who he secretly planned on leaving Dana for. If either of them snapped the other back with a black screen they were breaking up.
Social media’s mediocre dating pool ruined a generation of teenagers’ mindset on love. The content that festers on feeds and ForYou pages all around the globe supports the delusions, insecurities, and lack of respect that ultimately kills teenage love.
“We accept the love we think we deserve,” is a famous quote by the literary genius, Stephen Chbosky. If all of the love that we see is confined within the wires and signals of computers we will grow to believe that is what we deserve.
As humans we deserve real love, natural love. Love that is not computer generated and is filled with handwritten letters, a love that starts with the sound of a voice and not the sound of a notification.