Electric Youth Spurs Modern Love

The other day I saw Fabio shopping at the local mall. A day later, I saw Debbie Gibson at the movies. It was a throwback to the '80s-'90s sort of week. Toss in a little bit of valentines to top it off and voila, this post was born... Enjoy!

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IM Googled, status updated, linked, and blogged. Thumbs flying, ear-buds blasting; Match.com, here I am. Did you get my text? 'Cause I am next: I am Electric Youth. Valentine's Day may be just around the corner, but how can modern love compete with my latest tweet?

In the late '80s, Electric Youth was not an adolescent with ADD and an ipod in his hand. No, no-- it was a Debbie Gibson album and a popular perfume that teenage girls clamored for. Back then, remember? Valentine's Day was still fun and untainted. We handed out Looney Tune valentines to our classmates. We baked heart-shaped cookies. We passed notes. We left notes in lockers signed, Your Secret Admirer. And we silently prayed for that boy to send us flowers and candy.

We were all hormones and innocence and Lost In Your Eyes. Big surprise...

Now, Debbie is Deborah and we barely look up. We twitter, we text, but in many ways—we don't connect. No one seems to write letters anymore. Even a phone call takes too long. Texting is fast and gets to the point. It's quickly become the most popular way to communicate because we don't have to touch... heck, we don't even have to speak.

By February 2009, Twitter had reached 7 million unique visitors (Nielsen Wire) By 2009, 72.2% of cell phone users had a text-messaging plan on their cell phone and text usage went up by 107%. An astonishing 2.3 billion text messages are sent every day! (Paul Wise, Texting Statistics, Random Facts, and Blackberry Cell Phones)

With all these distractions, modern love is certainly complicated! And to think that online dating used to be scary and utterly taboo? Now, it's become the thing to do. Online, you never have to actually meet people or talk to them face-to-face. You can date from your living room and never leave the couch. You can pick your partner like you pick your kitchen tile. We're connected to technology, yet removed from each other.

It's become way too easy to poke fun at how technology's changed our love lives. Modern Love, the latest episode of the web series, It's Always Smoggy In L.A. did just that-- hilariously showcasing the pitfalls of modern love. This year, you may rush to make reservations and order flowers or you may wear black and scowl until the Valentine's sugar high has lifted. Whichever camp you find yourself in, unplug yourself for once, spend time with each other, and become one with the world.

Happy Valentine's Day Weekend!

Copyright ©2010 by KLiedle
Photo credit: starberryshyne/flickr.com