What did you do on the eve of February 14? Looking for a decent restaurant in a search engine? Created a group for those "who are bored and sad on Valentine's Day"? Did you laugh on twitter about your loneliness? Disconnected all the equipment and dedicated the only day in the year of personal life without the Internet? Technology directly affects people's relationships. In any case, 30 years ago it was not so.
Dan Slater , author of Love in the Age of Algorithms , carefully studied how technology — and the Internet in part — changed the ways people get to know, the process of creating a family and love. Below you will find five key problems - if change can be called a problem - modern expectations from relationships.
1. We need more matches.
In 1965, the first computer dating service deduced correspondences between people depending on their answers in the questionnaire. The questionnaire was loaded onto a computer and, on the basis of six matches, people who most closely matched the other respondents were put on paper. Today, people looking for a half on dating sites spend hours sorting through photos, interests and dialogues with other people.
"If you find up to six matches of interest with other people, you are likely to leave the site," says Slater. “I think our expectations have seriously changed with the development of technology.”
2. The effectiveness of online dating is growing
Taking into account all preferences, now you are “meeting”, that is, you encounter in any way, with a lot more people than those who tried to find themselves a couple of thirty years ago. If something went wrong while dating, the world is full of other singles you can contact.
For people who are dissatisfied with their relationship - especially for those who can not stand alone - the fact that the sea of lonely people is just waiting for you to enter your username and password and press the input is a powerful incentive to break.
Slater found out that many people began to value their relationships less, because they can always find someone with whom it would be better, more comfortable, cozier, and so on through the list.
3. Even if you do not go to dating sites, you get to know the web.
Regardless of whether you are trying to get acquainted on the Internet or not, most likely, your last passion is registered in one of the social networks. Most likely, VKontakte. And the sight of a huge amount of personal information about a person whom you may not even know completely may be disorienting. Roughly speaking, people are prone to paranoia, trying to interpret everything that the person with whom you are in a relationship puts it on the Internet.
“You see what each of you publishes — as if living a different life — and for some relationships it becomes a kind of test,” says Slater. “If you don’t fully trust a person, there will be a certain paranoia against the background of personal information that looms before your eyes day after day.”
Some are even jealous of brothers or sisters. What if this cute guy is a potential rival? (And actually cousin). The writer believes that over time, people will learn to cope with this, but now it is rather a stain on the sun.
A lot of people meet on the Internet, never visiting online dating sites. Profile on Facebook, World of Warcraft, or on some Habrahabr can be a guiding thread for the development of relationships.
4. In the world of online dating win "writers"
“The message is the first thing a person sees,” explains Slater. - "And of course, the correspondence will play a huge role in the beginning of dating."
New dating apps like Baddoo or HowAboutWe are trying to get people to meet at once in real-life (offline, HDI, over a cup of coffee) so that they can put the accents right. And it turns out that you are lucky to find someone who will not be far for hundreds or thousands of kilometers, or will come up with an original first date.
“I hope in the future people who do not earn a living with a pen will also be successful during online dating,” says Slater.
5. Algorithms are imperfect. But they are improving.
Algorithms may never be able to one hundred percent determine who is perfect for you. (Do not believe all this Vika + Peter = 74%). But this does not mean that they are useless.
Last year, psychologists led by Eli Finkel from Northwestern University questioned the effectiveness of the algorithms on dating sites. There is no evidence that at least one of them works.
Slater isn't sure either. But he believes that the algorithms will improve with time and will surprise even the most skeptical psychologists.
The key problem of the algorithms is that while filling the profile, people themselves do not know what they sometimes want. Our self-esteem is lame in both legs. To get around this, some sites started doing what is called a “behavioral filter” - using not only the information that you offer to the site, but also your behavior on the site.
“Watching your behavior on the site can even open your eyes to yourself,” Slater notes.
Source: popsci.com
The article is based on materials .
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