Sarah Owen

What defines new relational stages today, given they’re always mixed together with old ones on platforms eager to keep you engaged? How do you mark a new “era” when you’re keeping tabs on the day-to-day lives of hundreds of people who will never tangibly occupy your day-to-day life again?

For some singles, a potential partner who isn’t working on their mental health is not an option.

Patricia de Vries, a research professor at Gerrit Rietveld Academie who has written about algorithmic anxiety, told me, “Just as the fear of heights is not about heights, algorithmic anxiety is not simply about algorithms.”