Been reading up lots of stuff about dating and social media recently…
One of the most interesting ones has to be this entry from David Wygant a dating and relationship coach and writes for the New York Times.
Social media is what I’d call a romance contraceptive. It prevents romance from happening every single day.
Every day when I’m out and about, I’ll see people in elevators, I’ll see people in grocery stores, coffee shops, and at restaurants. And they’re all checking Facebook! Or they’re tweeting something to their 3.7 followers. We’ve become a society of people who are obsessed with what’s happening in the imaginary world.
Just the other day, I was in a supermarket in Los Angeles and I saw this guy checking out this girl. He was standing next to her in line at the juice bar. He kept looking at her, and she kept looking down … at the Facebook app on her iPhone.
Now, I know some of you right now are thinking, maybe she wasn’t interested. That wasn’t the issue. Because what I’m about to share with you is something most of you have probably done.
He gave up and disappeared. But I was crazy curious so I stood next to her in line and got real close and peeked at what she was typing into her phone.
Her status update: When am I going to meet a nice guy? It seems like all the good men are taken.
Think about what just happened.
She complained about not finding good men, but here was an interested man, standing next to her. Now, granted, nobody knows if the romance would have worked, but think about this: for every moment that you’re checking your Twitter feed, or your so-called friends’ updates on Facebook, you’re missing another opportunity to connect with somebody in real life … which could be another opportunity to fall in love.
I agree to a certain extend. I already gave a 5min presentation to #smc_mcr urging people to do more in real life. Don’t get me wrong, I also sometimes say “I got to tweet this…” but generally I’m not attached to my phone like some people I know.
We are in a world of flux right now, for some people mobile internet access is a good thing and for others its certainly not. Do you blame the technology or the person? I would say its the person.