Valentine’s Day: The changing face of love

IN 2024, finding love has never been more efficient and convenient. The advent of smartphones and dating apps give singles unprecedented access to a world of potential partners – an advantage no previous generations could even begin to imagine. Yet, at the same time, the ease of finding a lover also equates to the ease of losing one, since the same technologies that facilitate connections can also hasten their demise.

That’s the view of three love experts The Business Times spoke with: Prof Norman Li, an academic and researcher on human mating preferences at Singapore Management University; Dr Oberdan Marianetti, a psychologist, clinical sexologist and founder of Dr OM & Associates; and Ooi Sze Jin, a psychologist and founder of counselling clinic A Kind Place.

Prof Li says: “For those of us who live in a city, we think we have a lot of options because we’re now able to reach a lot more people. But our options also have options. As a result, people are getting in and out of relationships more quickly, ending them quickly when they think they can find something better out there. Technology has made it easy to get into a romance, but it’s also made it easy to get out. Everything has been sped up and relationships are getting shorter.”