Bryce Dallas Howard lives in the future, becomes obsessed with her rating on a universal social media app, commits social suicide by pissing a lot of people off, and ends up in a prison cell screaming maniacally.
This particular episode, Nosedive, maybe wasn’t as thought-provoking as some of the ones that came before it, but it did have a pretty clear and indisputable message:
Caring too much about what others think of you is detrimental to your health, and a Trip Advisor for people would be bad.
In a lot of ways, social media has already become somewhat like this – who among us hasn’t measured our self-worth based on Instagram likes or retweets at least once? – and so has dating.
You create your profile, you add your filtered pics, and you present what you want to be the best version of yourself.
In a lot of ways it’s not too dissimilar to meeting someone organically. You want them to think you’re perfect, successful, and totally without fault, while wondering how long you can go before the wall comes down and all your flaws are exposed.
I decided long ago (two months), that I was going to delete my dating apps in a bid to address my dependancy-from-strange-men-on-the-internet based issues.
I thought that if I could exist without the constant need for matches or dates or questionable compliments from lads I didn’t know, I could prove something to myself.
That was until the day I was asked if I wanted to review a new dating app that lets women rate men and leave anonymous reviews of their dating experiences and I thought, yes – I definitely do.
The app is called ‘Once’ and the concept behind it is simple enough: people are permitted to anonymously rate their matches based on a range of criteria from how much they look like their profile pictures to their offline behaviour to their conversational skills. Read more