online dating, most especially dating apps, is quickly becoming the most common way that romantic relationships begin, which is absolutely mind-blowing given that online dating became widely known in society in the mid-1990s and was heavily stigmatized to begin with. It didn't really start catching on with the mainstream public until around 2012 and start becoming the way to meet people. If you look at how people have met and formed relationships within the context of the course of history and then look at what has happened since the boom of online dating and dating apps, you will realize that in the blink of an eye, the entire landscape of Human Relationships has changed. There's an upside to dating apps; otherwise, they wouldn't have caught on. Things like having access to connecting with people who are outside of our limited Social Circle and geographic area, being matched with people according to, you know, preferences and compatibility points, things that aren't immediately obvious when meeting somebody face to face, more inclusivity and opportunities for people who are sexually in a different orientation or

not mainstream a sense of control. Most people finding it easier and less daunting and less high stakes to initiate a conversation with somebody that they're interested in, etc. But the landscape change of human relationships due to dating apps has not been a thing of beauty. In fact, there have been many profoundly negative impacts of dating apps, including many that most people do not see. For this reason, in today's episode, I'm going to offer you some awareness about the negative impacts of dating [Music] apps. One, due to the fact that dating apps are essentially hold databases of individuals who are looking for romantic and or sexual relationships, and that they take in a wide geographical area, dating apps give people a sense of endless opportunity. Because of this, it's actually reducing the value of people. People do not value the specific connections and specific people who they come into contact with as much. There's always someone else and always potentially someone better. It has enabled people to become like employers who are vetting candidates from a never-ending pool of potentials. This has

also made people become zero effort in their approach to relationships. If anything becomes hard, they can just move on to someone else. This less fair, apathetic, grass could always be green on the other side attitude towards relationships in general has made it so that it's actually harder to establish a relationship with someone and harder to keep the relationship intact, especially when things get less than pleasurable in the relationship. There's no real investment in relationships. The reality is when it comes to relationships, people need to have their best interests cared for, and they have long-term needs. Things like attachment, belonging, relationship security, emotional intimacy, to be known, positive ownership, emotional investment, and trust. These are all things that people need in relationships. These are all long-term needs that require you to put energy and care into the development and the strengthening of a relationship. These things take investment. So, people are not getting what they actually need in relationships from dating apps in the same way that people do not get adequate nutrition from fast food restaurants. Dating apps are the fast food of relationships. Dating apps have

effectively corroded a great deal of the energy input and the grip in relationships, which are necessary elements of making a relationship work. Humanity needs to master relationships; dating apps are not helping people with this at all. Two, it has created a hookup culture boom, and as it applies the destruction of human relationships. This is not really an argument about human sexuality or the morality or immorality of casual sex, which unfortunately is what most people make this conversation about. It's an argument about the boom of zero-investment relationships. Dating apps, especially those designed specifically for hookups, have enabled people to have casual sexual encounters without any emotional intimacy, bonding, commitment, or investment. This has increased the degree to which people are simply narcissistically using each other for personal romantic or sexual gratification. Dating apps have done their job to eradicate deep, emotionally intimate, committed, and invested relationships in a significant amount of people. It has led many people to feel like there's just an endless pool of opportunities to find someone, but it's also rare to find someone who wants an

actual relationship. Humanity needs to learn relationships. People are not learning relationships when they are normalizing no-investment relationships, and because of a great many factors, this hookup culture damages women even more than it does men. Also, because dating apps overwhelmingly cater to hookup culture, the fast-food relationship system, people who are looking at dating apps for their committed, invested relationship needs are often looking for their needs in a place that contradicts their needs completely. Three, because dating apps have become the way to meet people now, other ways of meeting people have gone away, making it seem like the only real option. People do not go out to events or places with the idea of meeting potential partners the way they used to, so people keep to themselves when they're out and about. People don't approach you like they used to; they don't strike up conversations. Lots of the events that used to cater to people looking for romantic and sexual partners, they don't happen anymore, or it has removed the human element from social interactions because dating apps are turning dating into a shopping for

people like you would shop for products at a grocery store experience. Uh, people are becoming like objects to other people. You can just go for whatever relational need you have in any moment, which has created a narcissistic dating culture. When you get on a dating app, you're getting on because you have a need. You are swiping on whoever you think can meet that need the fastest and best, and people are doing the same to you. Dating apps have made it so that people treat potential romantic candidates like objects rather than people. They forget that there is a person on the other side of that profile most of the time, and so they're not careful about the impact they have on one another, most especially when they're conversing with each other. People are also slipping into a self-objectification because of all of this. There's a lot of superficiality, and there's a lot of hurting people, people going on. Let's get more extreme. There is downright ruthlessness going on. If you want the honest truth, five dating apps are like a menu that disgustingly

simplifies who someone is. They take all the complexity of a person and how they have relationships and whittle it down to essentially a marketing pitch, something that does not show you the reality of who someone is at all. People also don't understand themselves enough to accurately portray the reality of themselves. You probably have figured this out yourself, so it puts you in the position of having to meet them in person to see if, number one, they've accurately described themselves, or two, if they are a match to what you're looking for. And here's the thing: when someone does this over and over and over, which is not actually normal for us as a species, and each time it's a no, a person starts to feel a sense of burnout, futility, and bitterness relative to relationships in general. They start to become more narcissistic because they're hurt and put less effort into relationships themselves. They may even withdraw from them completely. So, there is a relationship futility circulating, and a lot of that is being caused by

dating apps. Six dating apps promote relationships on the basis of superficiality and especially physical appearance. The dating apps of today encourage you to create a profile to showcase superficial things such as images to show people what you look like, what your hobbies and interests are, what kind of things you like sexually. These are not the qualities that determine whether a relationship will or won't work. They're also not the qualities that determine compatibility or lack thereof. What someone looks like does not tell you who they are or what they're going to be like in relationships, most especially, nor do any of these other superficial things. Due to this, people are passing up potentially very compatible people, and they're thinking that they're a match to people that they are absolutely not compatible with at all, and they are thinking that a superficial approach to establishing relationships works when it doesn't. Seven. Because of the nature of dating apps, dating apps have given rise to a situation where people's negative beliefs about relationships are being reinforced rather than healed. Beliefs

like I'm never going to find a relationship with a woman if I'm not tall enough. No one will ever want me unless I make enough money. The only thing that matters to men is looks. People just want sex. All people do is lie. I'm easily replaceable. Etc. What all this boils down to is that dating apps have made it so that people are not healing their relational traumas. Instead, they are getting more damaged, which we can't afford to be honest with you. Eight ghosting has become a common and normalized social behavior. Ghosting being to end a relationship and withdraw from all communication suddenly and without any explanation. This is a horrible social behavior that has a very deep negative impact on a person's well-being, and we're just like, Yeah, it happens. Nine negative impacts on self-esteem and mental and emotional health. Dating apps have made rejection a super frequent, if not consistent, part of social interaction, and due to the aforementioned factors, as well as the barrier that exists between people when

they're not face-to-face. People have much less of a problem rejecting each other over digital platforms, either by ghosting or communicating that you're not what they're looking for. You're essentially marketing yourself to be judged and tried out and rejected by people, and a lot of them. This can increase a sense of despair relative to finding somebody who will want you, anxiety about whether people will like you, and it can also lead to this feeling that there's something deeply wrong with you, like you're undesirable. This also digs a sense of loneliness deeper and deeper into your being. This pain can cause a person to withdraw from relationships altogether in anticipation of that rejection. Duping. This is an issue when it comes to dating in general. You guys have probably heard me talk about that at length in the past, but dating apps have rolled out the red carpet for the human shadows of deceit, autonomy, lying, and duping. They've allowed them to reign supreme. People can catfish, lie to you about themselves, and

their intentions present a totally false image of themselves and cause all kinds of pain while hiding behind an online facade. They've even discouraged this deception, unfortunately, on dating apps by making it so that the name of the game is to present yourself in a way that other people will want you, as opposed to presenting the reality of who you are. Dating apps are littered with dangerous dating scams. 11 dating apps are making it so many people are not out in the world living; they're on their phones constantly pouring all over their energy into things like consistently updating their profile, constantly checking to see if somebody has liked them, constantly messaging with multiple people, and constantly Doom scrolling profiles, chasing that high of being admired. There's a stressful yet addictive quality to it that can consume all of your time and energy. This damages your other relationships in your life; it limits the time and energy that you can put into other things that are important and meaningful to put time and energy into. It also robs you of your engagement.

with the present moment, you didn't really come here to spend all of your time staring at a screen, right? Bottom line: dating apps can very easily become a real accessory to the squandering of your life. All of these negative impacts have made it so that dating apps have given rise to more pain in relationships and a collective hope about relationships. So here's the thing: Society, not dating apps, has made people feel like they can't have relationships. This is true for many reasons, from the traditional structure of relationships no longer working in today's modern world, to autonomy and independence becoming such a sudden cardinal value in society, to all these damaging behaviors that people exhibit towards each other, to marketing and social media setting an ideal that absolutely nobody can live up to, but everyone's looking. Dating apps have come onto the scene, and they have been presented as the way to get your relationship needs met, but they change nothing about the dysfunction in human relationships at this point in time. Neither do they teach nor promote any of

the relationship skills that could put an end to these oppositional factors to Human Relationships. They simply put you in touch with far more people, so dating apps are just highlighting and amplifying, if not playing into, all the relationship dysfunction amongst you humans. The only thing that will lead to what most people are actually wanting and needing in relationships is investment, most especially the investment in mastering relationships. Have a good week. [Music]

The Negative Impacts of Dating Apps

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