Ideas worth spreading

Technology hasn't changed love. Here's why

2,347,693 views |

Helen Fisher |

TEDSummit

• June 2016

In our tech-driven, interconnected world, we've developed new ways and rules to court each other, but the fundamental principles of love have stayed the same, says anthropologist Helen Fisher. Our faster connections, she suggests, are actually leading to slower, more intimate relationships. At 12:20, couples therapist and relationship expert Esther Perel steps in to make an important point -- that while love itself stays the same, technology has affected the way we form and end relationships.

In our tech-driven, interconnected world, we've developed new ways and rules to court each other, but the fundamental principles of love have stayed the same, says anthropologist Helen Fisher. Our faster connections, she suggests, are actually leading to slower, more intimate relationships. At 12:20, couples therapist and relationship expert Esther Perel steps in to make an important point -- that while love itself stays the same, technology has affected the way we form and end relationships.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Take Helen Fisher's personality test. This questionnaire is based on extensive scientific research which suggests that humanity has evolved four broad basic styles of thinking and behaving linked with the dopamine, serotonin, testosterone and estrogen/oxytocin systems in the brain.

About the speaker

Helen Fisher

Anthropologist, expert on love

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Anthropologist Helen Fisher studies gender differences and the evolution of human emotions. She’s best known as an expert on romantic love.

Andrew J. Cherlin | Vintage, 2010 | Book

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Stephanie Coontz | Penguin Books, 2006 | Book

Marriage, a History: from Obedience to Intimacy or How Love Conquered Marriage

This book by a leading historian, Stephanie Coontz, gives myriad facts and a sweeping history of that subject dear to us all: love. She smartly shows how and why marriage has changed more in the past 100 years than in the past 10,000.

Eric Klinenberg | Penguin Books, 2013 | Book

Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone

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John Colapinto | Harper Perennial, 2006 | Book

As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl

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Peter B. Gray and Justin R. Garcia | Harvard University Press, 2013 | Book

Evolution and Human Sexual Behavior

This book is everything you ever wanted to know about sex—from theories of female orgasm to gender differences to sex as we age. It’s an elegant anthropological and evolutionary romp through all of the newest data on humankind’s oldest fascination: sex.

Geoffrey Miller | Anchor, 2001 | Book

The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature

Miller’s book picks up where Darwin left off—explaining the evolution (by sexual selection) of almost all of our human intellectual triumphs—from our human moral virtue to our math acuity, musical intelligence and sense of humor. As Miller says, “The mind evolved by moonlight.”

Learn more

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Take Helen Fisher's personality test. This questionnaire is based on extensive scientific research which suggests that humanity has evolved four broad basic styles of thinking and behaving linked with the dopamine, serotonin, testosterone and estrogen/oxytocin systems in the brain.