Picture this: it’s a Friday night. You are dressed in a new outfit, prepping for your dinner date with a person in your English class. This person is someone you have only talked to a couple of times, so you are looking forward to tonight, when you can finally get to know him or her better. 7 o’clock hits and you hear a knock on your door. And…news flash! It’s not 1981.

The reality is that in 2016, teenage “dating” is different than it once was. My purpose is not to carelessly slam modern dating culture as there are plenty of blogs run by paranoid mothers with that exact purpose, but to analyze why teenagers go about dating the way they do.

We have some idea of what dating culture once was. We’ve seen movies where a boy picks up a girl in his dad’s nice car and takes her out to a fancy restaurant, and we’ve all heard stories from our parents or grandparents about their experiences going on dates. However, these practices are foreign to many teenagers living in the 21^st century. Dating with the purpose of getting to know someone you like is, as of today, virtually nonexistent. For the most part, teenagers nowadays go on dates only after they are officially a couple and they have already gotten to know each other.

The most obvious contributor to the transformation in dating culture is technology. Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, texting, all of these forms of media have replaced dating as ways to get to know your next girlfriend or boyfriend. Teenagers treat Snapchat like a precursor to dating. It seems as though becoming Snapchat best friends has become a necessary step toward having a serious relationship. And in an era where “Instagram/Facebook official” has become an important milestone in a relationship, it is not surprising that dating mostly operates on cellular devices. Technology has made it easier to get to know a person without going on an actual date.

A problematic characteristic of these kinds of “dating” approaches is that the profile pictures, the Instagram posts and the Snapchat stories are the mediums people rely on when getting to know another person. Personalities have taken a backseat to what people look like in pictures and how they behave on social media or through text. Society is placing more and more emphasis on what people look like, therefore it is not surprising that all it takes for someone to lose interest is a bad three by three inch profile picture on his or her phone screen.

“Hooking up” is also worth mentioning as it plays a substantial role in modern dating culture. In fact, randomly “hooking up” with someone is seen as more normal than going on a date. Teenagers “hook up” with someone they may not know very well, tell their friends it meant nothing or that they regret it and try to avoid eye contact the next day at school. If you have been “hooking up” for a longer period of time, then your relationship progresses to a “thing,” and maybe if your “thing” with someone lasts long enough you will progress to the “dating” stage of a modern, high school relationship.

Some teenagers are comfortable with this system, some just deal with it and others hate it, but I think most teenagers would agree that how many people you have “hooked up” with is often viewed as more important than who you have “hooked up” with. As society puts more value on image it seems the value that people, adults included, place on physical intimacy declines. The media encourages girls to wear less and to behave a certain way in order to attract boys, while encouraging boys to ignore any feelings they may have and aim to “hook up” with as many girls as are willing.

Nevertheless, the transformation of dating is inevitable. Most people are not getting married at 23 anymore, women are working or going to college and are no longer expected to stay home and raise a family. The world has changed mostly for the better since the 1900s and it is expected that dating culture has, and will continue, to change along with it. However, as we move forward with our lives I think it would be valuable to reconsider how we approach getting to know people. Whether it be dating or making friends, the true value of a person comes from their personality, their sense of humor and their values. I hope that for the future, the way we go about dating will place more importance on these traits, and less importance on appearance and social media presence.