It's Valentine's Day and technology is ruling our relationships

Dating hasn't just been turned upside down by technology; it's being dominated by it. In the past few years, however, little has changed in the world of online dating.

If you had to explain dating in today to a time traveller from the 1950s, what will be your reaction?

Comedian Nikki Glaser says, "I would explain texting first, and how it takes five minutes now for people to decide they want to hook up." I would tell women, 'Buckle up, this is not going to be a fun ride."

Glaser who is 34, has made a professional study of dating sites like Tinder and the hookup culture that experts say has reshaped many people's sex lives. It provides lots of feed for her comedy routine.

Glaser says, for past generations, relationship milestones meant "going steady." Today's relationships can strike up after a few minutes of text chats. Almost everything is done on a phone using an app, "you can have a relationship with someone and never hear their voice."

So this is dating in today time
Dating apps are so commonplace now that swipe right, the way you show you like someone on Tinder, has become part of our everyday language. "Swipe right" now means "anytime you make a good choice or approve of something," as per the Urban Dictionary.

The internet has been "transformational" to the way we have relationships, says Pepper Schwartz, a professor of sociology at the University of Washington who studies dating and is also one of the matchmaking experts on the reality TV show Married at First Sight. She's noticed, the speed at which technological trends ripple through our culture, and how fast people become adopters.
Schwartz said, "It changes us, it’s a very powerful presence in modern life." That's particularly true in courtship and dating.

Schwartz says, a couple hundred years ago the world was transitioning from arranged marriages to "love." Researchers could tell because children weren't getting married in order of oldest to youngest anymore. Up until the automobile, aeroplane and mass education, people usually married someone nearby, such as a neighbour, a fellow churchgoer or the girl next door.

But these shifts fractured many communities. That, along with sex education, family planning and, in some places, egg freezing as a company-provided health benefit, shows most of the people are waiting longer before they settle down.
Who hasn't read about how millennials are less religious, have few kids and, despite the popularity of Tinder and the less formal dating culture it's helped introduce, may even be having less sex? The term "cybersex," which used to mean people describing sexual experiences to each other over chat, has converted into "sexting" -- and it's a far more accepted part of life. Varying sexuality and gender identity are more accepted today as well. There's a site for dating based on the contents of your fridge like Samsung's new Refrigerating app. here's even a site for supporters of the president of the United States. It's called TrumpSingles.com (It's real).

So as time passes and people move around, the traditional pools from which you'd normally find a partner pretty much disappear, Schwartz told. That leaves today's generation relationship seeker with very few options other than to look online.

According to the Statistic, Brain Research Institute over 90 per cent of America's more than 54 million singles has tried online dating. And 80 per cent of people who have used online dating told Pew in 2015 that it's a good method to meet people, with 62 per cent saying it's a way to find a better match than other methods because you can potentially learn more about someone up front.

Over the past decade, dating services have been set up for pretty much any interest. If you wanted to date only people who like Star Trek, normally you'd have to weed through several people before finding someone to join your crew, as it were. Now there's a site for pretty Star Trek fans, as well as sites for vampire enthusiasts, gamers and even devotees to the writings of Ayn Rand.

Tinder isn't exceptional; it's just a famous dating app. Others, such as Grindr, used by the gay community, and Bumble, where women make the first move, have joined staples like OkCupid, Match.com and eHarmony as go-to dating services on the web. Even Facebook has gotten into the dating game, testing a new feature for its website last year.