영성, 몸-마음, 젠더, 생태, 평화 Scapbook: Love and sex in the internet age

2021/09/22

Love and sex in the internet age | DW Documentary

DW Documentary

3.39M subscribers

The singles market is big and online dating businesses are booming. Digitalization seems to make finding the perfect mate simple. All it takes is a pair of clicks and you're in the "dating zone."

More than 20 million people live as singles in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Millions of them today use dating platforms, particularly apps. "That we kicked off a revolution - we certainly didn't expect that. Everything we do is aimed at directly linking people to each other. Today, no one has to be in a certain place in order to get acquainted," says Whitney Wolfe, about the most successful international dating app, Tinder. Wolfe is now the CEO of the dating app Bumble. The intuitive selection of a photo on a smartphone and access to others with similar interests (the famous "match") is a popular matchmaking principle today.

The big online dating services, on the other hand, use tests and algorithms to allegedly decide who's right for whom. The process is painstaking and mysterious. The formula that underpins German dating site Parship was developed by psychologist Hugo Schmale, who's now 87. Yet even he doesn't believe in love for life: "The boys and girls of tomorrow are all going to live to be 90. If they first meet each other at fifteen, then that's a strange idea, that they would remain in the same relationship from fifteen to 90. It's normal that people change and you need the chance to be able to split up again, too."

Historian Moira Weigel says dating has long shared much with the world of work, and not just in the Internet age. Self-promotion and self-improvement aren't exclusive to the smartphone era.

Sociologist Eva Illouz, however, warns that capitalism has appropriated love itself. This documentary takes the viewer into the world of online dating and tries to discover how courtship has changed in the digital age.

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1,201 Comments

Geostrategic Insights

10 months ago

The reality is that dating apps lose money if people end up in happy, long-term relationships. These apps aren’t designed to connect people, they’re designed to make men desperate and make women incredibly picky. The more they do this, the more they use the apps. Even if this wasn’t a conscious design, their algorithms have already done this to maximize profits. Just like social media is tearing apart social interactions, dating apps are tearing apart intimate relationships.

564

Jurgen Klopp

10 months ago

I really appreciate DW for bringing up such unique topics. Keep going.

143

P Barbosa

10 months ago

If one of the first things she tells on a date is that she lied about her age, any reasonable person would wonder what else would she lie about. I am amazed how people do not think that this kind of thing could scare quality partners away

287

127.0.0.1

10 months ago

The internet is full of people with expectations out of this world, with broken men and women who should be working on themselves and have no business dating IMO.

117

S T

10 months ago

So the lady is complaining about guys lying about their height/age etc...but then she admits lying about her own age also - you couldn't make this up!

287

Fabio Pisaruk

10 months ago

“A person rarely falls in love with a good character”

122

Duane May

4 months ago

1:45 I'm glad to see Napoleon is dating again.

6 Demon Bag

10 months ago

Ironic that people are missing many different people who walk past while they're trying to find one on an app....

235

Mohamed Chiker

8 months ago

People are looking for perfection, but we are Humans we live to complete each other

Robert Cece

9 months ago

I'm 37, haven't been on a date since I was 25 & I don't care. All 4 of my brothers are married. Only 1 is a legit happy marriage. And I admire that 1 brother. The other 3 are not happy marriages at all. Seems closer to a prison sentence actually. I don't know how my 1 brother found his wife but she is awesome. Super sane, mature, stable, no drama. The other 3 wives are either too crazy or too entitled. Factor in that social media is making people more (not less) crazy these days, I will probably die alone.

146

Heather Feather

9 months ago

Honestly, the age is just a number is a myth, at least for women over 30. In real life, I have many men from late 20s to mid 40s who want to get know me, but once I tell them the truth (that I'm in my 30s) it's like they completely change. Just uttering the number is enough to scare them off.

Visionery1

10 months ago (edited)

Interestingly, I met my wife online, we would otherwise never have met. Granted, I also met a few 'headcases', but that's to be expected. 15 years later we're still together, even through the COVID lockdown. :)

183

Lizanne Whitlow

10 months ago (edited)

Everyone wants to learn a foreign language but no one wants to do the work! 😂 That’s me trying to self-learn German! 7 years now.

255

sasan132

5 months ago

I am probably one of the rare cases that I found my love through dating apps. If you are looking for a real relationship you shouldn't lie. I never lied in any app to any woman I talked to. But I waited for a long time to find the right person. Being alone is always better than being with the wrong person.

Sheep Slayer

5 months ago

Met my woman the old fashion way in person randomly and was love at first sight at 17 & 18 years old, we are now 30 & 31 with 2 kids happy as can be also we are so much stronger together rather than individually!

Razvan Alexandru

9 months ago (edited)

Dating in Germany, Austria and Switzerland is almost impossible, online or offline. The people over there are super cold and not at all open to have a chat and to get to know somebody.

Wanda Prock

10 months ago

Don't do it , just stay single , save the heartache

123

Kwik Fox

10 months ago

Met my wife online 22 years ago. Now with 4 kids, we're still happy with each other. This was the era of ICQ, mIRC and telnet.

100

Itzel Direm

9 months ago

What I liked the most were the Waltz dance lessons. Call me old fashion, I love partner dancing and can wait to do it again after covid :(

Klimt's Cat

10 months ago

Oh my goodness, the dating guru. Why the heck would anyone waste their money on having sb tell them how to have a date!!! If you're an insecure person, he cannot fix that, if you're shy, he cannot fix that either and if you are confident and charming, you clearly don't need him!! So what's the point?

Kibi lost in translation

10 months ago

The best dating advice: don’t be ugly

285

Dia Kirkwood

10 months ago

If everyone pulled their noses out of their phones they could find someone naturally...you know like the “old days”