Valentine’s Day has just been and gone and don’t we all know it? It was plastered in shop windows, all over the television and if you’ve got a Twitter or Facebook account you most definitely had to endure the cringey updates from loved-up couples confessing their love for one another to the whole wide world! Don’t get me wrong, I’m a sucker for romance, but there’s a time and a place to show someone how you feel about them. But, with ever advancing technologies intruding into all areas of our lives and replacing most other forms of communication, the question arises as to whether we are losing the true meaning behind romance?
Before the internet and social networking, it took much more time, effort and thought to show someone how you felt, with hand written love letters, romantic nights out and spontaneous gestures. It was about getting to know one another, building trust and spending time together, ‘courting’ as my mum still calls it. But as social networking takes over our lives, it’s all too easy to know everything about everyone with a quick browse of their profile, and these days it seems more important to have a Facebook official relationship than a steady courtship. As we all know “it’s not official until it’s Facebook official!” and everyone knows everything about it.
It’s not just Facebook that’s ruining the romance; studies have shown that a quarter of couples text one another when both in the same house! Are we really becoming this lazy in our efforts to keep the romance alive? We’ve replaced love letters with inboxes and tweets and now talking with texting?! It seems to me like love’s being lost amongst the keyboards of our new gadgets.
I’m not denying that technology provides great advantages for relationships, especially for those in long distance relationships, with social networking and programs such as Skype. It’s much easier, cheaper and faster to communicate with whoever you like wherever they are in the world. You can share pictures, make a call, video chat all within a few clicks of a button and now apparently you can even takes things further… if you know what I mean? Research has found that sexting is on the rise with 44% of young people receiving these naughty texts. I guess it spices things up, in particular for those who spend long periods of times apart. But with sexting figures rising alongside the increase in smart-phone sales, is this ‘naughty new trend’ set to replace the real thing? It may seem exciting and adventurous now, but will we soon be replacing real passion with a few saucy texts?
Another sad thought is that with everyone declaring their undying love for one another via the internet, the formerly special three little words “I love you” are now becoming an everyday figure of speech, thrown around all over social media, being used colloquially and sometimes meaninglessly. We all say it, but do we all mean it? Maybe it’s time we rethink romance before it’s too late and we lose the spark.
Next time you’re thinking of expressing your love for someone don’t just write a soppy status. If we’re all being truthful no one else really wants to read them; it’s nearly as bad as overpowering public displays of affection! Ok, maybe I sound a bit sour, but it’s true. So instead of showing you care through love heart emoticons, why not take your loved one out, spend some time together and show them how you feel? Or be an old fashioned romantic and hand-write your feelings in a love letter; it shows that you’ve taken time and thought to express yourself and surely that replaces a thousand soppy statuses or tweets.
