Over the years, my research on my interests has varied greatly. Prior to this year, I had a great interest in social media and its effect on our generation. I mainly focused on the dating aspect of social media. The television show “Catfish” intrigued and inspired me the most. The show basically sets up a meeting between two people who essentially have “fallen in love” over the internet and one of the them wants to meet the other in person so they go about it by contacting the show. A lot of the time the people on the other side of the computer end up being fake. What led people to do such a horrible thing? Leading someone on and putting so much time and effort into getting the other person to “fall in love” with them over a simple dating website or even a common one such as facebook. It led me to start thinking physiologically. Is love over a computer really love? Or does that depend on one’s personal definition of love? Is there even a universal meaning of love anymore or it simply situational and opinionated? I realize that this must happen often if they have a reality show about it. I knew social media was taking over but little did I know it was to this extent. Social media actually helped me find more on this topic and I was able to test just how common it was. With the rise of the app called “tinder” where a simple swipe tells your future or a website such as “christian mingle” or “okcupid” where people put in their info in a superficial survey where they hope for love when they click submit. Everyday people turn to these things, some expecting true love and some expecting it to turn into a silly joke. I was continuously surprised to find statistics such as how a large percentage of couples break up because of something said on twitter or facebook. Would more people essentially “fall in love” if we didn’t have the internet so conveniently at our fingertips?
I really like what you have to say on the topic of social media. It is kind of crazy how it is almost a “social norm” to be looking for a relationship through a computer screen. It shows a lot about society and makes me question why. Are we now a generation of people who find security on a keyboard but are unable to communicate in the real world? Social media is taking over our generation and it’s scary.
ReplyDeleteI really like your opinion on online dating and love in general. I also often think about "what is love". On one hand, I believe there are definitions for different types of love but I also think "love" can be an opinion. I also really like how you incorporated social media and television in your post. These days, most of the younger generation learns about love from social media and tv.
ReplyDeleteI'm actually writing my feature article on social media and how it has effected our generation, so I was automatically drawn to your interest in researching that sort of stuff. I am more solely focused on the negatives and how it can hurt teenagers and alter their lives, but I think the dating aspect is very interesting as well. I like how you focused in on "Catfish," I love that show and it amazes me that someone would go through so much trouble to portray themselves as something they aren't.
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