Byline: Andrew Eder
Feb. 14--Shane and Nicole West like to keep an open line of communication.
More often than not, that line is text messages on their cellular phones.
The married University of Tennessee juniors will text back and forth 10 to 20 times a day.
"It can be anything from shopping ..." Nicole began.
"...To 'did you lock the door? Did you feed the pets?' " Shane finished.
The Wests, both 20, have their own profiles on the social networking sites MySpace and Facebook, which they'll use to communicate with each other. In addition to the text messages, they talk on their cell phones six to 10 times a day.
The two have been together for three years. In the early days of their relationship, they would flirt back and forth with online instant messages, "but there's really no need now, with text messages," said Shane West.
Technology has staked its place in modern romance. The U.S. online dating market is expected to reach $932 million by 2011, according to one research firm, and cell phones and other gadgets are letting couples stay in nearly constant contact.
Text messages are used for everything from flirting, to asking a love interest out on a date, to breaking up. Britney Spears reportedly dumped husband Kevin Federline with the text message, "I H8 U, loser!"
But as texting becomes the preferred way of keeping in touch, and the Internet becomes the venue of choice to meet singles, some people worry that face-to-face interaction is becoming a lost art.
"It's pushing us further and further away," said Kimberly Williams, a Chicago-based relationship advice columnist. "Talking on the phone is bad enough. I think people should get together and talk in person."
UT sociologist Suzanne Kurth has for years studied the differences between mediated and face-to-face interactions. She also gets an upclose look at modern communications through her dealings with UT students.
When her classes finish, Kurth said, the first thing most students do is check their cell phones.
"Sometimes people feel like they're on a leash -- they always have to be available or explain why they didn't answer," Kurth said. "It becomes at some level an obligation and not a pleasure."
It's easy to observe how chained college students are to their cell phones -- just walk through UT's University Center at lunchtime and watch how many students are talking, texting, or have their phones poised nearby.
Richard Burgess, a 19-year-old UT freshman, said some couples he knows will text message back and forth 15 to 20 times a day.
"There's a loss of intimacy, I think, when you're only using text messaging," he said.
Kurth said much of the nuance of face-to-face conversation is lost when translated into a mediated interaction like text messaging.
"Then you try to replace some of the things you lose by those little emoticons ... so that you recognize that you might be misunderstood," she said.
Missy Smith of Knoxville-based Dating Again Coach said there is a growing trend of people using text messages to convey unpleasant messages they'd rather not say in person.
"An unusual amount of people are using it to dump somebody. I don't like that," Smith said. "When you do those kinds of things, it comes back to you."
While text messages are changing the way couples communicate, online dating is changing the way they meet.
"I think online dating has become the new-age yenta (matchmaker), so to speak," said Williams, the Chicago columnist. "It's producing many more dates, but the quality of those dates can sometimes be in question."
The online dating world now offers more than just general dating sites like Yahoo! Personals and Match.com. There's JDate.com for Jewish singles, SeniorFriendFinder.com for the older crowd, Fitness-Singles.com for the athletic, and even DreamMatches.com, where only attractive singles need apply.
The profusion of online outlets is pushing more and more singles into the dating game.
Smith, the Knoxville dating coach, said online dating helps out busy professionals, older singles who have been out of the dating scene, and people who are uncomfortable approaching others in traditional social situations.
"The ones that are really shy and backward and have a hard time talking to someone cold turkey, the Internet is easier for them as an icebreaker," she said.
But after all the text and online messages, the time for a face-to-face meeting will arrive.
Smith advises her clients to ditch all their gadgets -- cell phones, pagers, Blackberries -- before the big date.
"They need to think," Smith said, "that you are the only person in the world at that moment."
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