Valentine’s Day is a day of love and romance celebrated since Roman times. But the ardent festival has evolved a lot, from paper cards to virtual ones. It has been transformed into something much more with our generation’s introduction of Social Media, AI, and other digital technologies.
Today, we look at how the Day has been affected by social media platforms in both positive and negative ways. At the end, you can also take a simple Valentine’s Day quiz to see if your method of rejoicing in the Day is traditional, trendy, or a mix of both.
Social Media: Changing The Scene
This simple overview gives you an account of the introduction of digital apps like Instagram and TikTok to people’s phones and lives, impacting how Valentine’s Day celebrations are celebrated. The influence of social media has a set of benefits and drawbacks, which we take a look at in the following:
Valentine’s Day Social Media Pros:
1. Platform To Showcase Your Love
Just as some people like private celebrations, some are more aligned with showcasing their love to the world. Couples, both literally and metaphorically, show their picture of perfection to their friends and followers and love the appreciation they receive. It can also act as a timeline tool!
2. Bridges The Gap
Social media can connect you with people around the world easily. It mainly can be heaven-sent for long-distance relationship couples. Activities like posting heartfelt messages and doing virtual challenges can allow them to celebrate the Day together, making it a Valentine’s Day pro.
3. Inspiration for Celebrations
Platforms focusing mainly on visual media, like Pinterest and Instagram, can offer loads of interesting ideas to celebrate the Day. Some popular activities you can find off the internet include fun date ideas and gift tutorials.
4. Empowerment of Singles
While the chances of finding love-dovey couples and their relationships over the first half of February may bore singletons, they can also find a tight-knit community of friends, most commonly being Gals of Galentine’s that give you a sense of community that celebrates friendship instead!
Valentine’s Day Social Media Cons:
1. Validation From Likes And Comments
When you celebrate Valentine’s week with all the cute and romantic activities and decor, most film it. Now, you may post and think, “It’s just for us,” but once you receive or don’t receive likes, it may affect you psychologically.
The happiness or validation of your perfect love that you get from the content performing greatly through the inclusion of likes, shares, and comments loses the romance for the romantic holiday.
2. The Rush To Follow Social Media Valentine’s Campaigns
The pressure to perform, whether it be following a couple of TikTok challenges like how well the two know each other or setting up literal picture-perfect dinners, can get to people. This rush makes up more of a performative Valentine’s.
3. Lack of Authenticity
The above points make Valentine’s Day cons as the festival of love becomes a mere show instead of a genuine celebration. You end up judging or even comparing your relationship with the mix of Valentine’s Day and social media platforms.
4. Commercialization of Love Through Marketing and Influencers
The market has long been a part of materializing Valentine’s, but the rapid growth of social platforms and influencers has further made the Day crowded with the romantic holiday, making it a big point among Valentine’s cons.
5. More Time for Screen, Less Time For Partner
While filming, posting, and analyzing how your content is doing, you may forget about what started it all: spending quality time with your loved ones. Alongside comparison culture, this can strain your relationship.
Valentine’s Day’s AI Future?
While we have covered the major topic of Valentine’s Day social media impact in this article, we have to take a moment to pay attention to the new tech wave in town, AI (Artificial Intelligence), which surpasses AR and VR.
With things changing week by week, as AI starts to cover different parts of services and industries, we should also consider how technology can affect Valentine’s Day celebrations. While these potential developments may not be producers’ top priority today, it would be interesting to know what the future of Valentine’s can be.
– Emotion-Detecting Tools
There are emotion-detecting and tracking technologies available that are already being used in the medical and business sectors. What if AI took another step further and the tools could suggest gifts and activities according to your partner’s mood through facial recognition and voice tone?
– AI Love-Relationship Coaches
A couple of AI coaches are already in the market, like Textmei.com. They are being promoted as relationship coaches and could further evolve and become digital relationship advisors that can be a main part of the preparation for Valentine’s.
Valentine’s Day Quiz
Here’s a free quiz for you to take either by yourself, with your partner, or with friends. It’s filled with simple but interesting questions that you can take digitally or even get a printout of so that you can see whether your way of Valentine’s Day celebration belongs to traditions or today’s digital age!
Conclusion
Social media has changed the playing field of Valentine’s Day celebrations. There are both sides to the coin when it comes to its introduction into our lives; while some love the platform to express their love to the whole world, others are not fans of the lack of creativity and commercialization that social media generates.
It’s all about your perspective and uses. While the way to enjoy the Day has changed, we do not have to be afraid of it. If you like classic celebrations, you can follow them, and if you love the modern way of socially celebrating, then there’s no problem with that either!
