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Many of the problems with modern dating aren’t specific to dating, they’re common to every type of social relations.
The loneliness epidemic is getting worse and worse and if a huge chunk of modern men can barely make a single real life friend, what are the odds they can find a girlfriend?
None of the gender war arguments explain why same-sex friendships are more difficult nowadays. But all the reasons that explain the loneliness crisis - social media addiction, an increasingly individualistic culture thanks to technology, the breakdown of communal third spaces, the fact that everyone is moving away instead of staying in the same town all their life, etc. all explain why people could be struggling to find a romantic partner.
Or a very simple explanation: the poorer, the less technologically advanced you are, the more socialising becomes a necessity. If you’re in a poor rural village, you need to socialise with your neighbours because they’re the ones that will help you if you get sick, fall on hard times, or just need an extra hand to help around the house/the farm. You need to get married and have children, not only because of social pressure but because family is both a safety net and a labour pool.
The loneliness crisis didn’t happen overnight. As we got more technologically advanced, we needed to rely less and less on other people for survival and even entertainment. People bring up how people in the past complained about every technological invention ruining the fabric of society as an argument on how social media/smartphones/AI isn’t that bad, but the past complaints were essentially right.
Books made it so you could stay home and be entertained without talking to anyone, although you had to be literate and still go out to the shop to buy them. Daily newspapers meant you didn’t have to get your gossip around the dinner table or at the pub. Television meant you didn’t have to leave the house to see a movie or a show. Smartphones let you have all of the above, and let you talk anywhere with anyone at anytime on your own schedule, replacing frequent in person hangouts where you could actually bond, with group chats and shallower, asynchronous text conversations.
AI is taking it a step further and making it even worse. Do you really think that the vast majority of people, who are now currently addicted to social media and scrolling TikTok all day instead of going out to make friends and romantic connections, will somehow be able to resist the slurry of AI generated content tailored precisely to engage them? LLMs designed to be the perfect conversation partner, the perfect friend, the perfect girlfriend or boyfriend, accessible 24/7 as a gorgeous realistic avatar that fulfils all your fantasies?
Great post!
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