The article “Digital Romance: The Teens Get It” mainly talks about a research showing that fifty percent of teens usually express interest in someone by friending them, commenting on or liking a post on social media which is also the most common way for lovers to contact each other. This kind of digital flirting shows that some teens are so discouraged from showing emotions that they can not manage face-to-face communication but instead need to hide behind the screens. Though the researchers maintain that most of the effects that social media have are still positive in promoting expressions, I deeply believed in the overall negative influence social media project on human communication.

I think that the fact showed in the research reflects some scenarios described in ‘Super Sad True Love Story’: for example, in page 89, people knew each other not through self-introduction, characteristics or hobbies but through the fuckability, personality and personal preferences showed on the apparat; also, in page 92, girls were too busy looking at men’s ranking to have time to look at real people. Those scenarios lead to a serious thinking that are we still thinking independently or are we manipulated by the statistics on technology? Since the beginning of human history, we knew, recognized and befriended with each other through the feelings generated through face-to-face communication. However, humans’ direct expressions seem to be cut off by the technology as a medium. When whatever we see online could be an elaborately faked impression, human’s contact will begin to have a tendency to deceit and superficiality.

Truly that technology can bring people far away together and give teens confidence to reach out to each other, isn’t it pointless to prefer hoaxing ourselves into believing that technology can promote human contact instead of encouraging people to face each other more bravely?

Julie Beck. “Digital Romance: The Teens Get It”  The Atlantic. Oct 1, 2015 http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/10/digital-romance-the-teens-get-it/408364/