Every day I wake up and thank God that I did not have access to social media or dating apps in my teen years or early adulthood

@Annie For real. I really feel sorry for the younger folks.

@Annie Yeah, my self esteem was bad enough back then.

@Annie absolutely!

@Annie There were dating apps when I was young. Before that, big chat platforms. But I actually met all my lovers in real life. Including my wife.

@Annie Ohyes. Can relate. Very very much. (Though, I did have access to certain digital subcultures in my late teenage days and still it was a far cry from how these things are today...)

@Annie as a (very) shy person growing and frequent moving, dating apps were a blessing, and almost the only way I dated. My life wouldn't be the same without them. At the same time, I wish I knew other "methods," and I don't.

@jean to me, it feels like such a lot to keep up with. And there’s this expectation among teens (the ones I know anyway) of being constantly available/responsive.

@skoobz yeah i think for me the flood of social media that early in life would have been real detrimental

@ner3y the big chat platforms were around (new! Exciting!) when I was a teen in the mid 90s. And I loved them but it wasn’t a constant access or main source of communication. I actually know a couple who did meet and marry thru one of our chat groups — they’re still together, have a few grown kids now. It was absolutely so wild to us (back then) that they connected online.

@z428 yes, same — chatting on the family computer in the basement was part of my teenage years, and fun. Made some neat connections. But I’m so glad I wasn’t posting my entire life all over the internet as a teen/young adult via social. It was limited and mostly closed groups, not the public stream it is now

@jtr oh that’s a great point. I did very little dating in my younger years anyway, and married early. Only since divorcing a few years ago I’ve ventured into dating apps and wow. It’s a lot. I do like that you can sort through things without pressure and take time on responses. But I really miss the sense of meeting a whole person, sensing a connection or not. I don’t really see any other way to do it though, and I’ve been looking.

@anniegreens 😅😅

@Annie there's a lot to talk about for sure. It's a somewhat weird topic to write about though. Dating apps are quick window shopping that doesn't give you any context, not to mention the unbelievable privacy/security information most of them sell to the highest bidder. I can go on lol...

@Annie Yes... still feel very hesitant to post parts of my life online, this whole public stream is something hard to grasp and hard to ... handle right, I guess. Sometimes this all feels like a huge social experiment, outcome unknown. 🙈

@Annie likewise early adulthood. We should protect the next generation more.

@Annie My parents did get a second telephone line in the mid-70s as they had 3 daughters entering their teens. I cannot remember 99% of what I would talk about for hours with my girlfriends. And that’s for the best. I cringe to think of having a record of my daily experience.

@jean right? We all go through so many phases as we grow up, and that’s perfect and good… and also good that those phases can be swept away and mostly forgotten.

I also think about how much performance pressure is on when there’s a major life event. Pinterest wasn’t around when I was planning my wedding, for example. What a different experience it would have been.

@warner yes I think our burden is to figure out how to live well with the technology we’ve allowed into the world.

@jtr yeah, the lack of context and the condensed surface-level interactions… and personally I get kind of “texting-fatigued” pretty fast so Im not great at the messaging that needs to happen long enough to know if you want to meet in person.

@z428 oof I think that’s exactly what it is! Though I guess that could be said for all of human civilization.

@Annie Amen to that. All my juvenilia is hidden away in print school and university magazines. And the first half decade of my professional career never made it to the web.

@Annie Oh yes.... hope that's not too gloomy a way of thinking...🙈

@Annie I get that a lot, usually from women. The case for men (again, usually, also not specific to cis men or cis women) is the extreme opposite: to little and too far in between. The dating apps are fueling the gap further, probably because it's a profitable business model, and it's also easier to build algorithms that mimic other apps then to come up with something complex and complicated for this kind of human interaction.

At the end it's up to use humans, and get out of our comfort zones. It's probably one of the areas in life where taking risks and chances is the most rewarding - and can be also most devastating.

@iChris hahah oh yeah. Some of my early blog stuff is captured on internet archive but you’d have to know what to dig for to find it. 😅

@adders I am so grateful that most of my early floundering isn’t encased in internet amber.
It’s entirely appropriate as we figure out what we’re about, but there’s relief that time washed most of it away.

Of course now I willingly post my floundering thoughts as I figure out what I’m about in the current iteration. 🤷‍♀️

@jtr “It's probably one of the areas in life where taking risks and chances is the most rewarding - and can be also most devastating.”

So so true. It’s such a vulnerable position. And that artificial gap created by dating apps is not what exists in reality, but the more we experience it in apps the more we thoughtless replicate it. You’re so right, it’s up to us humans to do better.