This week, we touched upon the impact of technology on our
romantic relationships. The materials presented featured online dating as a
recurring theme, along with many changes to contemporary dating practices compared
to the past.
A documentary featured in our latest live-tweeting session
called "Swiped: Hooking Up in the Digital Age" talked at great lengths about
how online dating platforms are skewering young people’s notion of social norm.
The deviations featured include a transition from synchronous communication to
asynchronous communication, deteriorating social skills, an increasing presence
of conquest pride, and a shift towards polyamory.
Most concerning among said deviations from social norms, in
my opinion, is the shift from monoamory towards polyamory. While there has been
no official research on the matter, I think this is partly a result of conquest
pride (remember that woman from the documentary? “The fruit on the top of the
tree is the best fruit.”) and the existence of low-commitment hook-up cultures.
The term “side bitches” was coined only among English-speaking countries within
the last ten years, and has no equivalent in any other language far as I’m
aware of. If you grew up in a culture in which hook-up dating sites are long
ingrained, you may find my concerns baseless and far-fetched. However, you must
have at least once wondered if the US’ high divorce rate is related to the
presence of said polyamory?
As a matter of fact, try googling “Polyamorous dating sites”
and watch in horror as more than 2.5 million results pop up in less than a
second. Also, get this: according to theatlantic.com, OkCupid added a polyamorous
feature for even MARRIED users 3 YEARS AGO! You guys may be unimpressed, but as
someone from a very conservative culture, this was absolutely mind-blowing. Let
me know what you guys think. Are you an advocate or a critic of this trend?
The comments you made in your blog post are a very accurate representation of what we are facing in our generational culture shift from the norm of monogamy to the concept of polyamory. Especially since swiping based dating apps such as Tinder and Bumble makes dating feel like a video game, similar to Pokémon that you’ve got to “Catch-Them-All”. Also what’s making us switch as a generation is how other social media platforms are feeding us the temptation of the forbidden fruit by other people due to provocative posts, and just the ease of access of just being able to “slide into the DMs”.
ReplyDeleteBack in 2018, the Medium ( https://medium.com/@singleinthe6ix/poly-relationships-2018s-new-tinder-fad-8ce5e55037f ) made a comment about how Polynamary is currently just “fad” on tinder, which makes it seem like they’re minimizing people that are actually Poly. But they make an interesting analogy as an outsider looking into the application of a poly relationship stating “Is it like sharing a plate of nachos? Ultimately with two people, you each get an even amount, but when you spread that out to three or four people someone is left with the shitty chips on the side with no cheese or the soggy chips on the bottom.” I think in reality we just have to wait and see what comes with this, if it’s just a “fad” or if it’s a transformation in our culture.