The Technological Spin on Relationships
By Kara Sordelett

They say everyone has a soul mate. They also say you never know what the future holds, but yet it’s not always the case. It is inevitable that change and progress will happen. It might not be the best change or the change a particular person hopes for, but it’s still an inevitable part of the future.

Relationships are full of unknown questions and concerns. Who will I be with in five years? Where will I live in seven? How many kids will I have? Will I be allowed to marry the person I choose? How will I meet the one for me? These are a few of the questions that can arise when considering relationships. Some technology can help answer, while others need to be left to fate or whatever the preference may be.

In the year 2033, dating may not exist. There will be automatic soul mates. Maybe we’ll all have chips built into our brains that when looking at another individual, it’ll scan their chip and rate your compatibility and then you know if there is even a reason to begin conversation. Besides, dating and open communication are overrated anyway.

It would be better to communicate with or meet someone in person as opposed to online. There are different levels of intimacy between the two and 9 times out of 10 meeting someone in person will give better feedback than reading a profile online or hoping their page is accurate. Yes, this can be true for meeting someone in person, if they are being genuine, but at least this way their mannerisms are available.

So let’s say we don’t have the technology yet for these chips to ready other’s personalities and we had to keep things “old fashioned”, what other possibilities may we have? Online dating sites have seen a drastic increase in popularity in the past few years. Assuming they are effective the interest will still remain in another twenty-five years. If this trend continues, there will be more dating sites and more interest in the dating sites. But not all the dating sites can be the same.

Video dating sites may arise, where the users can post videos as well as pictures. There could be a “day in the life of your future husband” video or a montage of “My life is composed of ‘That’s what she said’ moments”. Those may be a bit farfetched, but it’s the general idea. How else can dating sites change? They could have live chat features, whether it’s by video or text.

So there are some ideas of the future of dating sites, but how can these sites help and harm their users? It speeds up the dating process- which could go either way. It allows users to choose how honest or deceiving they wish to be. Anyone can use them for any personal reason: marriage, flings, friends, just meeting people, and everything in between. The idea of giving out personal information can be scary to some people. You never know who is going to look at your profile and what they will do with the information that is found. Solove mentions that knowing partial information can distort a person’s view and that knowing information can also lead to harmful acts such as blackmail (66-67). Not every user of a dating site will have ulterior motives, but there is no way of telling this until after the damage has been done.

Each user has a certain level of comfort. Therefore each profile will have different pieces of information, some will have more, and some will have less. If dating sites begin to add different means of communication and new ways of giving information, will it scare away users from an older generation that is concerned with the idea of their identity being taken for granted or even stolen in some cases?

The idea of identity and self are controversial when choosing to post personal information online. There is no such thing as privacy online. I doubt in 2033 that will be any different. The internet will be faster, will contain more information, will continue to be easier to navigate, but will never be a safe zone. Let’s skip all the hassle and get some chips implanted to answer all of life’s questions instead.


Solove, Daniel. The Future of Reputation. Yale University Press: New Haven, 2007.