Love & Relationships in 2011
The way relationships work has definitely changed a lot in the last 10-20 years. So many new forms of communication (mostly technological) have begun to change the way human interaction works and this has drastically affected relationships. Some of the same solid principles apply, but it’s important to look at where we stand now to get an overall picture of where we are going and how we can deal with some of the problems these new forms of communication present.
Everything is public. Over the last 5 years we’ve seen and incredible rise in the comfortability of people to make their lives public, specifically with the rise of social networking sites of Facebook and Twitter. Even facebook was launched with the idea of minimizing the questionability of of someone’s dating status (not that the dating status on facebook is necessarily the truth, just a portrayal). To some extent, the online profiles (of avatars) can represent ourselves, but they are moreover just an ‘avatar’ because they can never fully represent someone. They are an easy facade for the world. Even though they are solely a facade, oddly enough they sometimes represent reality even better than the ambiguity of real life. For instance, the actual term “facebook official” exists to determine someone’s relationship status.
Texting creates the opportunity to nonchalantly converse with someone you’d don’t know (a new guy you met on an online dating site, or a new friend), without the pressure of calling initially. In fact, I would say in general most people prefer to text over calling in 2011 because you have time to respond & craft your message. Also, they are easy to ignore. Generally speaking, not many people pick up their phone nowadays anyway. Everyone is just “too busy” to answer, so texting is becoming key to accomplishing communication.
Twitter is very popular, but the focus has become more on business / personal interest conversations that boyfriend / girlfriend conversations. However, smartphones now have so many apps that you can receive information streams from various services adding to the terrential flood of available information. Smartphones have become our connection to the world on the go and I believe that people in general have begun to ignore the general world around them. Even though they are addicted to the constant information stream and indulge in it any second they get (waiting on the bus, walking down the street, sitting in a coffee shop, sitting on the toilet), they still aren’t affected by it much. It just adds to the information overload. When they do receive a relevant message (like a text inviting them to do something) it becomes much easier to ignore, because there is always a constant stream of personal information coming through. If one text goes ignored, then there will always be another one, or a new fb message, or new tweet, soon after. It makes all incoming information a blur and only shocking, different, or extremely relevant information will get through to the end user.
This brings us to a generation characterized by selfishness where flakyness is not only acceptable, but expected. At first glance this is really sad. In reality, we are the first generation to deal with something like this, and it may take some time for us to be able to deal with it. Solutions providers will continue to develop tools to help us connect and make the information fed to us increasingly relevant–so communication will improve in general. Learn about how to get him back forever. However, it will be interesting to see where this leads us socially in the future.
What can we take from all this? Well there are a few things.
1) Relationships are changing and the first thing to do is recognize it and accept it– If you don’t receive a text back, don’t worry. That’s just how things work.
2) We must adopt new forms of communication to keep up. If you don’t text, don’t have cellphone, don’t use facebook, you will most likely be left behind and will not be able to fully participate in conversations. You must recognize social cues to join tools, and form habits that others form in order to communicate effectively.
3) We must constantly seek others that have the same views on communication and push for manners as we go forward. Just because there is a constant stream of information available doesn’t mean that your boyfriend should be checking his phone constantly when you are out at dinner. Manners can still exists in the real wold (and should). Practice recognizing and dealing with poor manners when dealing with technology.
