‘TiMER’ & Technology: Augmented Romance And Dating Trends

The other day I stumbled across a movie called ‘TiMER‘ which presents an interesting and enjoyable discussion of the use of technology in the world of romance, dating, and marriage.

As you can see in the trailer, the film’s basic premise involves complications resulting from the option to purchase an implant that (using a complex combination of factors including biometrics and personality profiling) is capable of telling you when you have met your soul mate.

The implant interface is in the form of a timer.  Apparently this advanced technology can also tell you when you will meet your soul mate- at least if he/she is in the system (if not, your clock is a depressing line of zeroes until your soul mate finally gets the implant).  Some people, upon getting the implant, get the depressing row of zeroes.  Others find they’ll meet their soul mate in three days.  Others may see a wait time of years- even decades.

The timer aspect opens up an interesting quandary for those who have a long wait before finding “the One.”  Do they avoid other relationships in the meantime?  After all, it would be akin to cheating on your future soul mate, right?  And even if you do want to shack up with someone before meeting your one true love, can you even find someone to mess around with when they’ll know perfectly well that you’ll break their heart?

‘TiMER’ has fun playing with this concept. It is an enjoyable movie to watch, and I think that the overall conclusion is appropriate.

But this movie brings up something more- something also infinitely fascinating: the concept of technology-augmented dating.  We’re already utilizing technology in the world of romance- online dating is booming these days, and I read recently that it has attracted 30 percent of web users. The use of technology in the form of huge databases and special personality profiles, as well as user-friendly interfaces and introduction processes, has enabled us to search for and find good romantic matches in a more controlled manner.

I used to think that this  structured form of seeking a mate was a deviation from normal human behavior- that love and romance and relationships have always been very intuitive, organic, and uncontrolled.  Of course, I soon realized the flaw in my reasoning- for the vast majority of human history, marriages have been arranged in very controlled manners.  Heck, in many places, they still are!

Hence, online dating- along with whatever additional technology-augmented romance methods we may encounter in the future- are simply a return to the norm.  What we have in this case is an example of human behavior trending in one direction and then trending back again- pendulum-style.  These cyclical patterns can be seen everywhere, and are a key component of long-term trends and the spotting thereof.

This post first appeared on Cultural Espionage With Harukosama