Swiping left on Love
Youth psychology is a discipline of psychology that focuses on the mental, emotional, and behavioral needs of adolescents. It is a field that specifically addresses the development, well-being, and functioning of youth. Youth psychologists work on a variety of typical issues, like self-esteem, peer pressure, and conflict with parents or siblings.
Earlier, people used to wait for weeks to read letters from their lovers ; hold on to that rose their significant other gifted them ; actually make eye contact before knowing what someones “favorite dream destination” is. But this is the 21st century, we are a fast food society. Now we have online dating, where you have a pool of eligible people to choose from. The fact that “the love of your life” might be one swipe away is how our youth would like to pursue dating. Since most dating websites make users look at a catalog of photographs to be clicked through until a suitor catches one’s attention, the profile picture can be the most important determinant to be contacted. Physical attraction becomes the key factor in deciding whether this individual fits their checklist of “my person”, basically romanticizing a stranger based on their curly hair. Most people find a person physically appealing when there is a deficit of information available, allowing them to fill in the blanks optimistically and romanticize random strangers because who doesn’t like believing that a stranger could be all that they have ever wanted?
As people have the advantage of choosing how to portray themselves as the “most attractive and interesting person here”, people can edit themselves into their most optimal version, furthermore “adding” features to their personality or enhancing physical aspects. Most people of our age don't use dating apps to actually find a mate ; with the self-esteem of young adults stooping lower and lower; it’s that sheer joy of validation that interests people to continue using apps such as tinder and bumble.
While some of us might find being on apps as a form of an “ego boost”, for most; due to the fact that media sources mostly portray idealized images of men and women that represent currently ruling specific beauty ideals, studies have found a positive correlation between media exposure and body image concerns.
Based on the fact that individual self-esteem is largely reflected by the relative measure between ideal self and the current self-image, there's a possibility that young minds become so dissatisfied with their perceived appearance that their self-esteem is affected negatively. Researchers have demonstrated that levels of self-esteem are strongly correlated to the beliefs we have about ourselves, and when you’re on an app where you are judged for your entire being based on your looks, it can affect you deeply.
With this lack of self-validation, few people might resort to catfishing. People have always lied about themselves once in a while to get what they want ; but catfishing, the modern, virtual iteration, is fascinating because of how easy it is to execute than ever before, coupled with how easy it has always been to choose to believe something that almost looks real and feels good, rather than digging deeper.
However, what motivates an individual to alternate their identity, with its own entire alternate universe is mainly escapism, role-play and the thrill of a good grift.
Researchers have found that loneliness, struggles with social connections, and dissatisfaction with one’s physical appearance led people to catfish.
Imagine talking to someone all day long, looking at their profile because somehow they tend to always say no when you want to FaceTime them, turns out to be a 50-year-old man who looks nothing like his photo on his profile and lives in his mom’s basement, surprisingly not in Paris as he mentioned to you.
So is our current youth losing touch with reality by only communicating with people through social media instead of real conversations outside of our phones? It has become so convenient to manage every aspect of our life through a device. I am sure some of us still want our relationships to spark more organically instead of getting left on read by a stranger. With so many new “methods” of dating coming up every single day, would you rather swipe right and indulge yourself into an app to find “the one” for you or swipe left and rather wait and get to know someone at a personal level, in a way that does not feel like you’re reading someone’s biodata to match your compatibility; to feel a connection with your “perfect match” after a mere eye contact?
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