The clock reads 2:23 a.m. and I realize I have been helping my friend decode text messages since the sun went down.

Now, had this been eight years ago, there would not have even been text messages to decode because, let’s be honest, no one wants to punch the “1” key three times just to get a stupid “c.” However, thanks to our pal Steve Jobs and the creators of mobile applications like Tinder, we can build an entire relationship without even having to speak a word (or triple punch our phone keys).

Since then, we’ve slowly slipped into an age of emoji-to-emoji conversation, almost entirely abandoning the chore of communicating “IRL,” or in real life. This inclination to substitute real life for the more controlled virtual world has brought us into an age of collecting friends on Facebook, curating our Instagram accounts and swiping right on Tinder as frequently as Beyoncé tells us to go “to the left.”

The development of our dependence on these things is hardly our own faults. As “hookup culture” has grown and our lives have become busier and busier, the idea of taking someone on multiple dates seems time-consuming and wasteful.

So, if there is a way to swim around in the dating pool without having to pause Netflix, why on earth would we want to do anything else?

Well, for one reason, studies show that we were never meant to know/see/date all of the single people within a 50-mile radius of us. According to MTV, that gives our little human brains too many options. In an MTV article titled, “The Science Behind Why Tinder is Effing Up Your Love Life,” right above a GIF of “The Big Bang Theory’s” Sheldon Cooper flipping out, it reads, “humans evolved to be addicted to new sexual opportunities, but not this many opportunities.”

Yes, it is exciting when we meet new people, especially when it is people we are attracted to. However, it can quickly become too much of a good thing when apps like Tinder flood us with options just as fast as the streets of Lubbock flood.

The sensation is similar to choosing food from the menu at The Cheesecake Factory or a Chili’s Grill and Bar. There are so many choices that one can hardly decide which subcategory to peruse, let alone what to actually order. And, chances are, whatever we do decide upon will most likely be rather disappointing and leave us wondering if our hour and a half out and $12.62 could have been put to better use.

This is not to say Tinder and other similar dating sites have been ineffective. Most of them have a high success rate (meaning a lot of great relationships come out of their match making efforts) and that really is a good thing, but it is Tinder’s overwhelming success leaving me a little concerned.

With sites like Match.com and eHarmony, the end goal is to be in a stable relationship. However, with Tinder, the cooler, less committal (and probably a little less desperate) cousin of these websites, strives to be able to provide its users with a one night stand nicely wrapped up in a bow.

In a Vanity Fair article published this month, Nancy Jo Sales (who coined the term “dating apocalypse”) compares this aspect of Tinder to online shopping. We get a picture of what we’re “buying,” a few commonplace details and a location to pick up our purchase (assuming we get messaged back). We have essentially commercialized and devalued dating, and I am not sure the world is ready for that. In fact, I am positive it’s not.

First of all, as much as we want to insist that women like sleeping around just as much as men, there is no denying it is riskier for us. And, let’s be real, I am pretty sure no little girl sits at home and dreams about the day when she can spend her Friday nights answering booty calls.

As David Buss, a professor of psychology at The University of Texas at Austin, points out in the same Vanity Fair article, “when there is a surplus of women, or a perceived surplus of women, the whole mating system tends to shift toward short-term dating. Men don’t have to commit so they pursue a short-term mating strategy... and women are forced to go along with it in order to mate at all.”

So, not only is the abundance of options Tinder supplies a tad overwhelming, but it has also dramatically shifted the way we play the dating game.

With Tinder, every day we can relive our middle school years and play a solid round of “Hot or Not,” but this time with a more serious outcome. The thing is, however, we’re not in middle school anymore. This is college and if we don’t find someone to commit to by the time we’re out of here, chances are, we’ll end up on eHarmony answering hundreds of questions about what we think a perfect date would be.

So, for all of us out there who watch John Hughes movies and long for the days when the only way to get ahold of a girl was to call her landline, brace yourselves. The dating apocalypse has begun.