Are Hookup Apps Replacing Relationships?

In today’s digital hookup culture, sexting has welcomed a new kind of foreplay — one that’s personalized and riddled with mystery, intrigue, and anonymity. But as younger generations become more adapted to faceless sex talk, are we getting less interested in the real thing?

I gotta admit the digital revolution made even the most mundane things convenient. Social media, online shopping, and food delivery apps allow us to stay connected, all while we remain spread eagle on the couch. Thanks to online porn and hookup apps, the same can be said for sex (or at least our urge to have it). Nowadays, ordering sex is as easy as ordering pizza. I can’t help but wonder if that's making us lose the search in connecting with people on a deeper level.

As someone who came of age at the dawn of social media, I remember what it was like needing to court someone for sex. There were no smart phones when I was a teenager. We had Nokia phones. Remember those? They were thick and heavy, and the only thing distracting us from each other was the snake game (nostalgia alert!) In those days our version of “sexting” was writing a note on paper and folding it into the shape of a heart. So scandalous.

There’s no need for that kind of effort today. With so many opportunities to hunt for sex, we’ve begun feeding sexual impulses before our emotional needs — in many ways at the expense of our wellbeing. The more time we spend seeking validation from people rating us on how fuckable we look, the less time we spend listening to those telling us how loveable we are.

It’s not necessarily our fault, though. While there isn’t clear science demonstrating that porn itself is addictive, the effects are similar to all other addictions. Reports by the New York Post stated that when it comes to addiction, "there is a clear association between behaviors and alterations in brain chemistry, which is coupled with physical withdrawal effects if the given behavior is restricted." In other words, the human brain is a funny thing in that the more we tell it how to behave the more it does so with or without our permission. We're not fully satisfied until we have it, and what's worse, our tolerance for it continues to be climb.  

Associated behaviors like this welcome a spike in dopamine (the happy chemical). Relying too heavily on these spikes can trick our brains into thinking we need it in order to be satisfied. That certainly explains why studies have shown frequent porn viewing is associated with lower sexual satisfaction, according to the study Personal Pornography Viewing and Sexual Satisfaction: A Quadratic Analysis.

Sexting, however, can possibly go a step further in triggering these spikes than porn does simply because it’s personalized. After all, as sex researcher Zhana Vrangalova shared with Vice, "[Sexting] shows that the person is interested in or turned on by you, and knowing that you're wanted is one of the greatest turn-ons ever.”

According to General Social Survey data, young people in 2004 to 2012 were having just as much sex as their counterparts in 1988 to 1996 (around once a week). But the major difference is young people today are less likely to enter a steady relationship with those they slept with. These are the same folks who spend an average of 12 minutes on porn sites, which they visit nearly eight times per month, according to info from Paint Bottle.

Something else that’s interesting is the American Psychological Association shows that eight out of 10 adults admit to sexting regularly. Emily Stasko of Drexel University, who presented the research, admits the results show it's "important to continue investigating the role sexting plays in current romantic and sexual relationships.” With so much digital sex talk, it's bound to impact relationships in one form or another. 

Personally I know phone sex will never be an adamant replacement for the real thing, but something much deeper is apparent. Are people so scared to be vulnerable with other human beings that we'd rather be intimate with gadgets? At our core, we’re animals who like to hunt — and hookup apps are all about the hunt. But life should always be about balance. Isn't there room for emotionally availability, too? 

I'm a very sex-positive guy, but think of the associations to each other we're building for our brains when we're hunting for sex on an app 24/7. Eventually these habits become walls, until we allow ourselves to be aware of them. Hookup apps are great and all, but if you ask me they ought to be placed separate from the heart. Balance is key. 

David Artavia is the managing editor at The Advocate magazine, Plus magazine, HollywoodHoller.com; and the features editor at Chill magazine. He also shares the same birthday as Bernadette Peters, which is pretty rad. Follow him on Facebook: @TheDavidArtavia. Twitter: @DMArtavia. Instagram: @DMArtavia