Chapter I – Once upon a time, they ghosted me.

Once upon a time, love was about intimate, in-person conversations and heartfelt, handwritten letters.

Has that time passed? As algorithms have reshaped expectations of love, and texts have replaced meaningful face-to-face conversations, love often doesn’t feel the same. Why?

Picture-perfect romance has flooded social media. TikToks of intertwined lovers with captions of everlasting happiness and gushing Instagram reels using the same ten adjectives bombard adolescents with the idea that love is perfect. Yet all of these posts share one crucial flaw: they show just one exaggerated, curated facet of “love.” 

But love isn’t easy. Relationships inevitably come with challenges, which are a normal aspect of every couple that just never ends up on your “For You Page.” Yet romance online seems so effortlessly flawless, often creating dissatisfaction and discouraging teens from building relationships when it’s not as simple as algorithms suggest. 

Moreover, sensationalized “clickbait” content creates a breeding ground for insecurities. Search “Five Ways to Know They’re Cheating” on any platform, and pages of anxiety-inducing results appear. The Pew Research Center found that 27% of teens with dating experience say social media makes them feel jealous or unsure of their relationship. 

Your feed isn’t the only thing changing relationships. Texting has also significantly shifted the relationship landscape. In some ways, that change is good. Many are more comfortable expressing themselves online. It can make communication easier, gradually building intimacy. Texting also allows teens to take time to craft the perfect response, something that is otherwise impossible.

But these benefits aren’t without cost. Being distant from the recipient and, by extension, the immediate consequences, can encourage inappropriate, hurtful messages. Furthermore, adolescents increasingly feel pressure to respond immediately. Those who reply quickly are considered more loyal and caring, while those who take longer, for any reason, are the opposite. The desire to appear “available” can push teens into unhealthy expectations. 

Social media also influences the way relationships end. The Pew Research Center also found that 31% of teens have been broken up with via text. There are reasons for this. They may not want to see their partner hurt or angry. Yet a text is cold and far less personal. It can send the message that the relationship was so unimportant that it didn’t even warrant a proper conversation. Often, it denies the necessary closure that comes from crucial non-verbal cues. While it alleviates the pain of one, it leaves the other hurting alone. Ms. Johnson, the Upper School psychologist, emphasizes that “it’s easier in that moment, but two years later, when dialogue isn’t able to happen because it’s been severed, the missed opportunity is very painful over time, and it impacts the next relationship.”

So what’s the solution? 

You don’t have to delete all social media. Just recognize that romance pictured online is exaggerated, designed for likes, and not at all a template for your love. And communication is key. Open, honest discussions on how posts and messages online affect your relationship can prevent small doubts from growing into resentment. Moreover, try your best to leave the deep, intimate conversations, such as breakups, offline. Ms. Johnson explains that “when there’s potential conflict or feelings involved, that’s where texting isn’t good… when you only read that text, and you don’t get to hear their tone and the way they’re looking at you, misunderstanding can come. There’s this chasm of disconnection and pain that’s internalized.” 

Technology is progress. But before we get carried away with fantasies of social media, we need to confront its pervasive impacts. Recognizing them is the first step toward building real, meaningful relationships.

Chapter II – And then my friends became ghosts…

It was 10:55 a.m. when a starving Aiden W. (‘29) spotted the only open seat in the cafeteria and asked if he could sit. After a quick ‘yes’, he dropped into the chair, finally diving into the lunch he had painfully waited in line for. Hoping to ease the awkward silence, he struck up a conversation about the upcoming Frolic dance with the freshman sitting next to him. Though the responses were mostly ‘mmh’s and ‘ahh’s, he didn’t think much of it—they were eating, after all. But when he lifted his head, he saw that the person he had been talking to had his phone out. Not really knowing what to do, he followed suit. Soon enough, the end of the third period snuck up on them, and Aiden realized that he had just spent 80 minutes staring at his phone.

Aiden’s experience highlights a behavior that has become second nature to us: retreating into our devices to anchor ourselves in our familiar, comfortable world. Although this helps to reduce awkwardness, floating between both worlds hurts the people around you. When you take your phone out mid-conversation, the message being sent (pun intended) is usually that the conversation isn’t worth your time. Aiden aptly describes people who do this as “mindless zombies” who blankly respond with empty backchanneling. Unsurprisingly, he says that he’d “rather [someone] be engaged.” We cannot give a conversation the attention it deserves while simultaneously processing information on our phones.

Beyond just being rude, our approachability also lowers when we use our phones. When researcher Kostadin Kushlev asked pairs of college students to come into a lab waiting room, with or without their phones, the students believed that they would be waiting to participate in a study. However, they were already being observed. While the students waited for the fake study, some took out their phones, while others engaged in conversation. Kushlev found that those who brought phones smiled less overall, signaling less interest in connecting with others. This suggests that when we see others on their phones, we are much less likely to approach and instead opt to avoid interaction, thinking that they’d rather be left alone. When people in a space together are without phones, a conversation is more likely to occur.

Each time you take your phone out when hanging out with someone, you’re missing out on an opportunity to build deeper, human connections. The loss of connection is a heavy price, especially since a poll conducted by Axios found that 44% of young adults still prefer in-person talk over texting. Despite the categorization of the newer generations as the ‘phone kids’, most of us still desire true, in-person socialization. 

To stay present, Aiden suggests turning off WiFi and cellular data when in social places. While the ‘do not disturb’ mode works, notifications still arrive on your lock screen. At least with cellular data and WiFi off, you have no way of receiving messages until you turn them back on.

All of this makes me wonder if, in a world without phones distracting us, those eighty minutes may have been the start of a happily ever after. We like to think of ourselves as ‘aware’ of our own flaws. We tell ourselves we aren’t like the ‘mindless zombies’ that Aiden describes. Yet we go about our daily lives, each day the same as the last. Each day, another missed opportunity. 

Alas, for Aiden and the tablemate, it will have to remain a happily ever after that never worked out.