Love once gradually landed in someone’s eyes, now that profile is fixed in two lines of picture and bio. The relationship which was earlier climbed with letters, meetings and waiting, today it starts in a ‘swipe’ and ends in the next ‘Anamach’. While online dating has opened new avenues to join, the depth and durability of relationships has also been challenged. Now the attraction is immediate, but the association is superficial. Platforms like Tinder, Bumble, Okcupid have made the relationship easier, but they have started changing at such a speed that emotions are leaving behind. Love is no longer a process of maturing gradually, but a digital experience of ‘fast consumption’.
Yougov India’s 2023 report states that about 68% of Indian youth believe that the relationship on dating apps does not last more than three months. According to Pew Research Center (2022), 59% of users consider online dating as “temporary experience”. This means that the place of emotional engagement has now been replaced by experimental relations. Where earlier, connecting deeply to a person was the priority of life, now the excess of options has made a kind of ’emotional neglect’. This temporaryness not only weakens relationships, but also makes the person’s mental structure unstable. People do ‘connect’, but are not ‘connected’.
Breakup has now become a normal stage, not deep pain -like the clothes change, the partners change. The easier this change seems, the more it breaks the person. Today’s youth is entangled between countless options, but has lost a sense of stability with one. This is the reason that there is no ‘investment’ in relationships, no ‘probability’ is seen-whether this relationship will last or not, there is less confidence and more doubt on it. This ostener has not only changed the definition of love, but has also inserted a permanent sense of insecurity, competition and doubt in it. The love that used to comfort the soul earlier is now turning into mental exhaustion.
Along with this, the culture of casual relationship is becoming increasingly normal. ‘Dating’ is no longer looking for love or spouse, but has become a platform of experience, exploration and temporary association. The ease of physical relationships and the absence of emotional engagement have broken a dangerous balance. A study by Journal of Adolesent Health (2022) suggests that ’emotional commitment’ is limited to only 28% in relationships that started online. This means that most people are open for many options at the same time. This trend is not only the sanctity of relationships, but also destroying the self-seriousness of the person. Relationships are now ‘content’-as you watched the video, if you liked it, then they went ahead, otherwise they have skipped.
The solution is neither in running away from technology nor making online dating a villain. This is a reality of the era, but it is equally important to take care of it. If we consider love as an object of consumption, then the relationship can get depth again. Screen conversations may begin, but the connection will require time, dialogue and sensation. Waiting, patience and understanding in relationships will have to be returned. We also have to understand that the search for durability in the crowd of options becomes more difficult-and the fatigue of that search gradually turns into loneliness. Therefore, it is more important to stay before joining and to fulfill it.
Finally, the digital age has changed the appearance of relationships, but not needed. The heart still wants only one who does not listen, understand, and leave. Online or offline-rings are fixed only when they have truth, depth and stability. In the world of ‘Swipe’, if someone knows to ‘stop’, then a true relationship begins. Today’s question is this-can we create a slow, permanent and live journey again, by removing love from fast consumption?