When senior Devon Kardwell saw Bellarmine College Preparatory senior Max Manolov in the background of her friend’s photo sophomore year, she knew she wanted to reach out. But instead of asking for his Snapchat or Instagram, Kardwell wanted his phone number.
“Snapchat is so impersonal, so casual, so I knew if I was actually going to pursue this person, I was going to ask for their number,” Kardwell said.
Manolov said as someone who’s cautious about social media interactions with strangers, Kardwell’s choice stood out to him.
“I think asking for a number is probably the most personal you can get,” Manolov said. “I felt that it had more meaning than to just ask for my Snap.”
Yet stories like this are gradually becoming the minority among today’s teenage couples. With the growing influence of social media and messaging apps and the rise of casual relationships, the youth dating scene is rapidly evolving — at the expense of human connection, some say.
Dating in the digital age
Social media has become a major part of teenage dating culture, influencing many teens’ relationship choices. According to a 2024 Pew Research Center survey of 1,391 U.S. teens, around 60% of teens use Instagram and 55% use Snapchat, and in an opt-in survey conducted by The Campanile of 31 Paly students who responded across all grade levels, 66.6% of them said they “agree” or “strongly agree” social media and messaging apps have played an important role in their romantic relationships.
Sophomore Brandon Leung said social media has negatively affected the way many teenagers build romantic relationships.
“Social media has definitely screwed up some of the relationship check boxes that people try to hit,” Leung said. “It has heightened standards and lowered trust within relationships.”
Junior Zoe Pashalidis attributed these new relationship struggles to social media representations.
“There can be unrealistic expectations when people only capture the good moments of their relationship, when there can be a lot of things that they’re battling behind the screen,” Pashalidis said.
However, junior Ishaan Juyal said, like many issues related to technology, there are both benefits and drawbacks to sharing relationships on social media.
“On one hand, it’s a great way for people to share what they’ve been doing with their partner, and it makes them feel more connected with other people,” Juyal said. “But then sometimes couples can end up becoming so consumed by the way their relationship is perceived in social media that they end up using social media as a reflection of their relationship rather than their actual dynamic.”
Because of this, Tribeca Therapy therapist Matthew Lundquist, who has worked with teens for over two decades, warned against looking to social media for examples of how relationships should be.
“Social media projects this particular idea about what people look like, and how much fun they’re having and how hot the person they’re dating is,” Lundquist said. “I think all humans can really struggle with these kinds of illusions, but there’s some evidence that teens in particular can really struggle with sorting out the difference between projection and reality.”
And for Pashalidis, Snapchat is particularly problematic in fostering distrust.
“Snapchat makes it really easy for teenagers to add a lot of people and talk to a lot of people,” Pashalidis said. “And with the chats self-deleting, if you have a partner, it makes it really easy to lie to them.”
To make things worse, Leung said some social media companies put features behind a paywall, taking advantage of teens who use their apps to form relationships, reflecting the changing dynamics of modern relationships.
“Snapchat Premium has all these features, like seeing people’s best friends lists and their streaks,” Leung said. “It’s lowering the trust between people in relationships. The fact that you feel you need to buy Snapchat Premium, I think that’s a good reflection of how social media is belittling how relationships work in our modern times.”
However, others say social media does not always lessen the depth of relationships. Sophomore Sotary Cordova said apps like Snapchat and Instagram have strengthened her and her boyfriend’s relationship.
“We did have a class together, but I think Snapchat definitely brought us closer,” Cordova said. “I didn’t know who he was, but because of social media, I was able to talk to him and connect with him and get to know him.”
Still, Bay Area-based parenting coach Sean Donohue said parents today are worried about the role technology can play in their teens’ romantic relationships.
“They are more out of the loop than ever,” Donohue said. “They don’t know what’s going on, or who their teenager is talking with or how they’re talking.”
Donohue also said many parents want their teenagers to focus on connecting with others offline.
“A lot of parents don’t understand that you can have a really healthy relationship with someone using technology, and that a lot of teenagers enjoy talking with people and getting to know people through technology,” Donohue said. “But the parents also make a good point, because real, in-person experiences are always much more human and deeper than anything online.”
Stanford junior class president Madhav Prakash, an organizer for Stanford’s student-run dating app Date Drop, said dating apps can help young people find forms of companionship aside from romantic relationships.
“Beyond (dating), it would be quite a pity if you went four years without maximizing the amount of people you meet and get to know,” Prakash said. “So sure, we call it Date Drop, but it’s also valuable to find friends. It’s quite exciting to see different ways people are engaging with it.”
Prakash also said many young adults use dating apps to look for casual relationships, which have become a larger part of the dating scene.
“I would say a significant chunk of my friends are on dating apps,” Prakash said. “I feel like college is a place where a lot of meet-cutes do happen, but that also there’s a huge culture of not wanting to commit. So there’s lots of casual things happening, situationships happening and people hooking up.”
The dating cultural shift
While it may be difficult to know the extent of technology’s impact on the teen dating scene, some argue a growing reliance on technology to form relationships is part of a recent cultural shift in youth dating.
One consequence resulting from social media app dating is roster culture, a practice where one entertains many romantic interests at the same time, casually adding or removing people from their list.
These relationships tend to be casual, which can be appealing to students with busy lives and competing priorities. Pashalidis said because of the minimal depth and commitment required, roster culture is counterintuitive to pursuing a relationship.
“Having a roster shows the girl or the boy that you’re not serious about them,” Pashalidis said.
Junior Elena Salvatierra, though, said she doesn’t notice roster culture as much as talking culture in teenage dating.
“In my experience, having a roster is laughed at if you take it seriously,” Salvatierra said. “Having a talking stage is definitely a valid thing, but I think having a roster is not a prideful thing. It’s kind of a joke, in my experience.”
Juyal said another shift in modern dating culture is the growing inclusion of LGBTQ+ people.
“Now we live in a world where a lot more people are more willing to treat dating like a more casual thing,” Juyal said. “(People don’t have to) act in a (certain) way in terms of gender roles in dating.”
Prakash said the accessibility of information through social media propels these casual relationships. Through social media, he’s able to find mutuals, unlike having to first meet people in person.
“I sort of have a sense of who the attractive gay guys are in my year at Stanford,” Prakesh said. “Even though there are 2000 people in a year, we all follow each other (on social media). So, when you meet somebody, it’s not the first time you’re meeting them. You know something about them, which maybe makes it easier.”
With the rise in casual relationships, some students say they run into confusion with boundaries. Lundquist said in his years of work, it has become increasingly unclear to many where their relationships stand — dating, talking, Snapping or exclusive.
“There’s been just a big change from, 20 to 30, years ago, in terms of what dating even means, and how it’s designed to be defined,” Lundquist said. “It’s this idea of friends with benefits or something that’s casual, versus a time when there was a lot more formality and clarity.”
Donohue said this is in part because his generation wasn’t concerned with the added layer of social media in romantic relationships.
“It can be very confusing dating nowadays because of all these apps and the nuances of technology,” Dohohue said. “When we were growing up, we didn’t have to deal with texting somebody and then being insecure because we’re waiting how many minutes or hours before they text us back. We didn’t have to stalk their Instagram, curious what they are doing or who they are with.”
Regardless of these cultural shifts, Donohue said teenagers looking to date still need to have a high level of maturity to maintain a healthy long-term relationship and awareness of their own well-being.
“It’s kind of like you’re driving in a car with somebody who’s a new driver, and you know they don’t have a ton of experience,” Donohue said. “So put your seatbelt on and be careful. And if they’re not a good driver, then don’t drive with them again, because you’re putting your life at risk, and you’re worthy of a lot of love and respect.”
Kardwell, however, said parents shouldn’t interfere with teenage dating unless signs of an unhealthy relationship appear.
“My parents just thought, because of their own past experiences, ‘Oh, this isn’t gonna work out,’” Kardwell said. “And I’d say, ‘Your past experiences don’t affect your child’s experiences, because even though a lot of high school sweethearts don’t work out, it doesn’t mean all of them won’t.”
Ultimately, Juyal said, dating in high school can be beneficial, especially when experiencing both the positives and negatives of a relationship without the pressures of adulthood.
“It teaches you how to date in a safer environment where you’re managing less stress,” Juyal said. “Are we emotionally mature enough to handle a relationship? Probably not. But this is the time where it’s the best place to be emotionally immature and learn from that.”
Outside of the dating bubble
With more widespread use of social media, it can be easy for teens to develop unrealistic expectations of what relationships are like. Junior Luiza Teixeira said these expectations can place pressure to date on teens, even those who don’t want to be in a romantic relationship.
“You get surrounded by a lot of these things, even if it’s not what your heart actually desires,” Teixeria said. “I’ve experienced this. At a point I felt like I was super lonely, and I would have someone over. I didn’t even want to do anything sexual; I just wanted to have someone there.”
Leung also said high school relationships get overhyped, which creates unrealistic expectations for long-term relationships.
“The chance that you run away with your high school love, marry and have a family is not the largest,” Leung said. “So I think that if they’re not who you’re going to be with in the long run, what’s the point of dating someone if after you go to college? You’re just going to part ways.”
Pashalidis said teens can also feel pressured to act more mature and rush into relationships as a result.
“I think teenagers in relationships oftentimes try to act like adults,” Pashalidis said. “They take it way too seriously, when in reality, we’re really not adults. I also think that teenagers also try to act too mature, and then they do things that they’ll regret, like hooking up with random people.”
Manolov said teenagers shouldn’t feel undue pressure to date before they feel ready.
“Life doesn’t shut down at 18,” Manolov said. “You find friends, you find adventure, you find love at every age. So sometimes what feels like missing out at 16 turns into being a more prepared and interesting person at 22.”
The future of dating for youth
Salvatierra said today’s teenagers veer away from the traditional romantic standards of previous generations, a change that comes with both positive and negative effects.
“Our generation kind of has lost the magic of dating,” Salvatierra said. “I feel like in my mom’s day, guys would have to do a lot more to win a girl over and keep dating them. I think in our generation, it’s more mutual, so that’s a good thing. But it’s also hard to feel, after a first day of establishing something, that someone stops trying.”
As a therapist, Lundquist said he tries to consider both sides of the social media debate when advising teens.
“I’m not automatically inclined to devalue online relationships, but I do think that in-person, offline relationships are important,” Lundquist said. “When technology interferes with people physically getting together in person, I think that there’s something lost there.”
Regardless of whether people recognize the effects of social media on relationships, freshman Fabiana Littlefield said, students need to focus on staying in the present moment and prioritizing in-person interactions in relationships.
“When you’re with somebody, just try to actually be with them and not be thinking of other stuff or be on your phone,” Littlefield said. “You don’t want to go back in your memories and realize, ‘I didn’t spend any of my time with them because I was on my phone, and I wasn’t taking advantage of what I had.’”
Prakash said a balance can be reached to preserve old perspectives of love while also adapting to how society has evolved.
“I think preserving the sanctity and the beauty of what love can be, and the intense passion that goes into things like relationships and sex and stuff is important,” Prakash said. “But also, the era in which those things existed was an era where we didn’t know much about consent, and we didn’t know much about women’s rights, and we didn’t know much about queer liberation.”
Ultimately, Prakash said, the future of relationships reflects the changing world today’s teenagers face.
“Maybe the man standing outside your window with the rose isn’t the image that we’re going after,” Prakash said. “Maybe it’s more of an equal partnership. So times have evolved for sure, yet I can’t help but feel emotionally attracted to the beauty and the art of olden-time culture.”
