The advent of new technologies and social media has changed the way we interact with people, meet new friends and partners, and maintain relationships. Our realities are becoming more mixed as we are walking a razor-thin line between the physical and the digital. Some say that this divide will continue to blur even more with the development of technologies, especially AR and VR.

In this article, we team up with Stan Kos, founder of the innovative dating app YouMatch, to explore how digitalization has transformed our relationships, partnership, and intimacy.

The Impact of Digital Platforms on Meeting and Maintaining Relationships

According to research made by Stanford University sociologists, meeting online has become the most popular way couples meet, eclipsing meeting through friends. Moreover, among the couples who meet online, the proportion who have met through the mediation of third persons has declined over time.

In 2015, the Pew Research Center found that 57% of teens ages 13 to 17 had no problem making new friends online, with most of those friendships remaining in the digital space. The most common spots for meeting friends online were social media sites like Facebook or Instagram and sites for playing networked videogames.

Now, these teens are adults and their relationship preferences have carried forward with them. Many are even having intimate experiences that are purely digital.

Spending time with their friends in person on a daily basis was relevant for only 25% of teens, while fully 55% texted their friends daily. For many people, messaging and communicating online has become the main way to maintain relationships. Social media sites and messaging services play an essential role in this shift. Let's see in more detail what beneficial and negative effects these platforms have on human relationships.

Digital technology helps us stay connected with relatives, friends, partners, or people who we might otherwise have lost touch with. When used wisely, social media can strengthen social connections and even improve our mental health. Routine social media use may compensate for diminishing face-to-face social interactions in people’s busy lives, and provide alternative means of finding support and approval.

With couples, technology significantly impacts communication between partners. On one hand, it helps partners stay connected and get to know each other via messages and shared content, such as books, movies, and music. However, messaging apps and social media may also createa false sense of constant availability of the partner, which greatly affects the quality of communication and relationship development.

Was the message opened? If it was, why was there no reply for 20 minutes? Someone is calling me; I need to answer this immediately.

The feeling that both we and the others should always be in touch creates a new neurotic need — to keep everything under control. As a result, we develop higher levels of anxiety, an inability to focus on one task, and a sense that we missed something important.

Social media may also harm our relationships in other ways. When used uncontrollably, technology may lead to diminished in-person communication. This reduction in direct, offline interactions can affect the depth and quality of interpersonal relationships. Continuous overuse of social media leads to a potential decline in our ability to connect on a deeper, more personal level.

Additionally, digital devices may divert our attention away from our partners becoming the source and the reason for distraction. The endless social media newsfeed, coupled with the stream of notifications, can captivate our focus causing damage to our relationships, leaving us with feelings of neglect and dissatisfaction, and creating barriers on the way to meaningful connections with the people we love.

Technology can even cause trust issues in relationships. Easy access to social media and dating sites opens avenues for jealousy and insecurity. Online activity, while often innocent, can cause mistrust and suspicion, leading to doubts and conflicts that may damage the relationship.

Today, dating apps and social media platforms can be seen as facilitators of cheating in a way that was never possible before. In past decades, people had to put much more effort into being unfaithful to their partners. But now, you can be sitting next to your spouse not knowing if they’re texting someone else they just met online.

However, by using the technologies wisely, we can strengthen our relationships. A good morning message to a loved one can give them a real sense of joy and intimacy. An emoji added to a message can emphasize an important idea. A voice message can create a sense of closeness.

If you find it difficult to start a conversation or don’t know what to talk about, virtual assistants and chatbots can help. They can suggest a unique icebreaker or an interesting topic to discuss and connect over. When used wisely, they can improve your life, ease communication, and help build connections more quickly.

Swipe Right or Left? The Dual Nature of Online Dating

Online dating sites, such as Match.com, started to emerge in the 1990s, offering people new ways to find partners online. In the early 2000s, these platforms began to actively evolve, adopting various matching algorithms and other features. With the advent of smartphones and apps like Tinder, online dating has become even more accessible and popular.

With dating apps, meeting new people has become easier and more convenient. You can connect with different users anytime, anywhere, it is even possible to reach out to people you would never encounter in your everyday life (foreigners, people of totally different backgrounds, and from other social groups).

Thanks to the possibility of setting search parameters (which is also impossible offline), the results of your experience with the app may be more satisfying. Want to find people with the same hobbies? Hope to meet someone with the same values and expectations from relationships? Algorithms will analyze your preferences, age, and location, to suggest more compatible partners.

Overall, dating apps are more efficient and time-saving in comparison to traditional dating. However, the mainstream market-leading platforms have a number of negative aspects.

First of all, it is a superficial approach to dating. All we know about other users is just their appearances and brief descriptions. Because of that, people may dehumanize other users and perceive them simply as objects on the smartphone screen which decreases the emotional value of relationships.

Endless scrolling through potential partners creates the illusion of infinite choice and can result in a constant search for a "better option" and the inability to settle on one person.

Today, more and more apps with a deeper approach to dating have started to appear. For example, there is Jigsaw, which doesn't let users see their matches' faces before the two people have a conversation. S'More has a somewhat similar operating model. The app conceals people's faces, but the more matches message each other, the more the photos unblur. YouMatch connects only people with high levels of personal and psychological compatibility. All these apps do not give priority to appearance, trying to make the dating experience more conscious and deep.

Secondly, algorithms may create a false sense of compatibility based only on superficial information users share on their profiles. The psychological and emotional compatibility of two people is not always considered.

Also, algorithms are not as unbiased and wise as they may seem. Apps may favor certain types of people based on user's preferences and previous choices, reducing the diversity of potential partners. Filters that we set can exclude potentially promising candidates due to minor mismatches.

By overestimating the importance of algorithms and relying on them too much, we can end up ignoring potentially suitable partners both online and offline. After spending too much time on dating apps, one may go back to real-life meetings with difficulty and experience problems with building deep relationships.

Additionally, there are emotional consequences of the excessive usage of dating platforms. People may feel disappointed and tired of frequent rejections or unsuccessful dates. They may develop an addiction to the app and constantly strive to find the "best" option. Matching algorithms can create inflated expectations about the ideal partner and maintain the illusion of ease and availability of perfect relationships.

AI Companions: The Illusion of Intimacy in a Digital World

Surprisingly, with the development of artificial intelligence and chatbots, some people started building friendships and even romantic relationships with digital assistants. Earlier, people thought that we would have a master-servant relationship with the technologies but now it is becoming our companion. We even ignore the people around us to keep up with what’s happening in our digital lives.

Platforms like Replika, an AI-powered chatbot that can take the form of a friend, partner, or mentor depending on the user's instructions, create the illusion of communication with a real person, always ready to listen and support. Some applications get to know us so well that they become something like a real human friend. In Australia, plenty of people are currently keeping company with an AI-powered companion called iFriend. The app promises to always listen, understand, and understand you.

Of course, to some, it helps to cope with loneliness. However, as California University sociology professor Stacy Torres warns, such relationships can lead to unrealistic expectations of real people. Communication with AI does not require the effort needed in real relationships, which can exacerbate feelings of loneliness and make it more difficult to build genuine connections with other human beings.

Torres expresses concern about that issue. The convenience of AI companions may hinder users’ long-term well-being. For a short time, a digital friend can soothe loneliness, but it is unlikely to work at a longer distance. Replika mostly serves as a vessel for users’ wants and needs, rather than a two-way exchange.

“If you have this technology where you can customize it to your specification, I think the challenge or maybe a possible danger is just developing kind of unrealistic expectations of other people that either leads you to have more conflict when you interact with people in real life or just to withdraw,” Torres says

Chatbots can imitate intimacy and connection but they are not genuine. There’s a hollowness to conversations with bots and neither Replika nor iFriend can ever quite capture the feeling of a real friendship with another person, someone with their own needs and complications.

Feature image credit: Getty Images