The Argument: Online Dating
- Delta Sky
- Jul 29, 2018
- 1 min read
Even though online dating is popular, it has only helped corrupt our world.
With a growing number of dating apps, many people have turned to their smartphones and social media accounts as a way to interact with people - but what happened to the face-to-face conversations? People are constantly on their phones, most can't even life their daily lives without one which makes dating less interactive.
To continue to eliminate actual interactions, people have actually began to outsource their love-lives by creating spreadsheets and algorithms that can hack the online dating scene. For instance, Amy Webb, spoke about how she did this and found her husband.
“But is this even fair?"
What happened to the days where boys would come ringing on the doorbell to pick a girl up for a dinner date? Or the times people had to use a landline to even contact the other person?
Online dating has taken away from the sentimental and genuine ways of dating, so why are we continuing to do it? Some may say its easier, as it is at the touch of your finger but wouldn't you rather have a love story that starts from an actual in-person conversation rather than a Tinder swipe?
Let's change the dating scene back to one where love letters are written by hand (not text), flowers are brought to one's porch (instead of sent with emoji), and you take a night out for the movies (not just Netflix-and-chill).
Your sentences are still cluttered and could use more attention. Here’s an example:
“To continue to eliminate actual interactions, people have actually began to outsource their love-lives by creating spreadsheets and algorithms that can hack the online dating scene.”
Rewrite number one, eliminating clutter:
To further reduce interaction, people outsource their love lives with spreadsheets and algorithms that hack the online dating scene.
Rewrite number two, improving the message:
The most ambitious singles develop their own dating algorithms to “hack” the algorithms of their dating services, further reducing the time they spend on genuine human interaction.
Again, you’ve done a great job catching up on the course. This is a good take on the assignment.
What really impresses me is your ability to take a niche like modern dating and just dive in with your writing. You wrote a lot of posts fairly quickly. Your devil’s advocate does a good job of imitating the more shallow rejections of the online dating scene. You sound like a grumpy old man in places.
That’s one point of the assignment. If you understand how audiences might reject your ideas, you can make your ideas stronger and reach more people.
The devils advocate assignment also reinforces my emphasis on “drafting” throughout the semester. Too often we think of another draft…
Hey Delta,
Great job with this assignment! I too wish we could go back to the days of handwritten notes and chivalry. I really connected to your writing and I felt a lot of the passion you put into this assignment.
The only note I would have besides the other comments would be on the sentence: "Some may say its easier, as it is at the touch of your finger but wouldn't you rather have a love story that starts from an actual in-person conversation rather than a Tinder swipe?" Read pretty clunky. It could use a rewrite possibly but overall, really good job!
Hey Delta!
I truly enjoyed reading this piece, since I am not fully aware on the behind the scene logistics of dating apps.
The line: "What happened to the days where boys would come ringing on the doorbell to pick a girl up for a dinner date?" painted such charming imagery for me.
I would incorporate a rationale and/or an example as to why you feel this way, because it may appear a bit confusing to the reader: "Online dating has taken away from the sentimental and genuine ways of dating, so why are we continuing to do it?"
Overall, nice job! :)
- Ava
This was an enjoyable, relatable read. I'm lucky to say that I met my husband the good old-fashioned in person way, even though online dating was already picking up speed. Your first sentence is strong and makes a bold claim - the word "corrupt" hits hard in this context. My only suggestion to strengthen this would be to read it again with an eye for passive voice. For example in paragraph 2, the first sentence could convey the same message, organized differently:
People outsource their love-lives by creating spreadsheets and algorithms that can hack the online dating scene and eliminate actual interactions.
I'm excited that you're joining our team and am looking forward to reading you more!