TIME’S MARRIAGE APP
The clock’s a-ticking!
I’m sure you’ve all heard about TIME magazine’s “Marriage app” for Facebook by now, and if you haven’t, then please, let me explain. Based on scientific algorithms, Facebook rifles through the friends listed as “married” on your account, and constructs an algorithm to tell you when you should be getting married. Algorithms, as we all know, are 100%, factually correct. Yes, I’m BS’ing you. This marriage app is about as correct as a Buzzfeed quiz.
Here’s how it works. The app considers the amount of your friends who are married, looks at the ages at which they were married, and then determines to what percentage they have surpassed you in the “I do” department. The caveat: it only lists anyone who is listed as “married,” “engaged,” “in a domestic partnership,” or “in a civil union.” If someone doesn’t want the rest of the world knowing his or her business (albeit being married since the age of 18) they won’t be factored in, nor will the people who don’t list their date of birth.
So basically, the results are skewed from the very beginning. There isn’t much fact to this app, as scientific as it is, which means the results could hardly be right. Or could they?
According to my results, the median age of my 157 married friends is 33.6 years old. I am 33 years old. Therefore, the app hastens to tell me that I have a three months and nine day window in which to tie the knot.
Pity for me, the discussion of marriage isn’t even in the cards at the moment. My boyfriend, while lovely, moves at the speed of a quite geriatric turtle. But that doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about marriage, or that I don’t want it. So could this app be — gasp! — right? Or does it just prey on our insecurities and deepest desires, as so many members of the WWW has noted?
That, unfortunately, I have no answer to. I can confess that I very smugly thought “It’s not too late!” before remembering that there will be zero chance of my boyfriend proposing in three months. Hell, he may not even do so in three years. Bye, bye, smug one. Hello shame face.
So it looks like the app got me doing what I promised myself it wouldn’t before I experimented with it. It got me thinking, it got me questioning, it got me worrying, wishing and hoping.
Dear friends, I got duped by technology, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. What I am ashamed about: that I bought into it in the first place.