If it were 20 years ago and you told someone you were meeting potential soulmates through apps on your phone, no one would even have known what you were talking about. If it were ten years ago and you told someone you were going on a reality show to fall in love with someone, with no face-to-face contact, people might think you’re insane.
But what might’ve been considered crazy a decade ago, is now taking the world by storm as Netflix’s original series, “Love is Blind”, has millions of viewers on the edge of their seat, pairing people together that they don’t even know.
Although, not everyone is exactly a fan of the show. Twitter user @apimpnamedcarm will probably not be tuning in again.
“Y’all can keep that love is blind mess,” @apimpnamedcarm said. Checked out after the first episode. Not my kinda trash TV.”
The show isn’t a totally new concept, however. In 1965 ABC premiered “The Dating Game” where a woman (without seeing them) would ask three potential candidates questions leading to her final choice of who she wanted to go out on a date with.
All of these shows come with risks of course. According to history.com a 1978 contestant on “The Dating Game”, Rodney Alcala, was later found to be one of America’s most vicious serial killers.
Love is Blind isn’t an anomaly to new approaches to meeting your significant other. Through technology and innovation, the dating scene has been completely revolutionized. If meeting people at your local coffee shop or having to initiate a conversation with someone you think is cute isn’t your thing, you now have several other options to meeting people. But, 10 years from now, are we going to look back on these new concepts and regret that the art of romanticizing each other face-to-face has been lost? We just might.
According to Liberty Classical Academy, due to technology, humans are losing five key in-person social skills. These include eye contact, phone skills, conversations, spatial awareness/dangerous distraction and attention span.
Arguably, all five of these skills are important components when dating someone new and determining if you want your relationship to become long-term. If we’re losing our ability to even hold a conversation or being aware of when someone is a potential threat to us, how can we successfully tackle the already difficult concept of dating?
Perhaps it’s creators behind shows like Love is Blind that see where we’re headed as a society. Maybe they’re trying to solve our problems like keeping eye contact, by eliminating face-to-face conversation altogether.
“It is the strongest form of nonverbal communication and over 43 percent of the attention we focus on someone is devoted to the eyes,” Liberty Classical Academy said.
One interracial couple on “Love is Blind,” Cameron Hamilton and Lauren Speed, have stolen the hearts of fans everywhere. They actually have been married for over a year and have done countless interviews talking about their love story.
Of the six couples that got engaged through the show two couples got married, and one couple is still dating. The show either has a 33% success rate so far, based off of marriages or a 50% success rate based off of couples still together.
Only time will tell if our modern approaches to dating are doing more harm than good for us. As for me, I still love a good conversation at a cafe so don’t be shy.