We live in a time of contradiction. We have the technology to allow for extraordinary connection, yet people feel incredibly alone and isolated. We could have almost anything at our fingertips, yet we find ourselves frustrated or bored. We are living in the information age, yet our world is marked by mistrust and apathy. We use the word “love” all the time, yet the way we use it increasingly blurs what it actually means.
Part of the problem in how we use the word “love” is due to semantic inflation and a broader shift in our culture towards hyperbolic language, whereby stronger and stronger expressions are used to convey the same feeling because our everyday language has lost precision and weight.
For example, when asked how something was, “good” is no longer enough. We say it was “amazing!” At the end of every interview, people no longer say “thank you,” they say, “thank you so much!” Similarly, instead of just liking something, we say we “love” it. Today, if we don’t use the most intense form of description, we risk coming across as giving a slight critique.
However, when we use stronger and stronger expressions to convey the same sentiment, we flatten distinctions between thoughts, emotions, and experiences. If everything is “amazing,” it becomes harder to distinguish what is truly exceptional. If every idea is “genius,” it’s hard to know what to really consider. If we “love” everything—from people to products to passing experiences—loving slides into “liking a lot,” and the language we rely on to express deep commitment begins to lose its hold on us.
People may very well realize the conceptual difference between loving a turkey sandwich and loving their children, but the concept creep of “love” into “like” does have practical ramifications. To see why, it helps to step back for a moment and look at what happens when language shifts in other areas.
Philosopher Eve Kitsik argues that when harm-oriented categories broaden to include a wider range of phenomena, it is not necessarily true that people will lose the ability to understand the differences between subgroups of the now-expanded category. We can still tell the difference between, say, physical and psychological harm. Yet, the expanded category instructs people on how to direct their attention to the issue. She writes, “How we use terms like "sexual harassment" or "human rights" influences what problems we select for acting on (addressing), first as individuals, and thereby as communities."
Said differently, the words we use don’t describe reality—they guide what we notice and how we respond. Broadening a category will lead people to see a wider range of issues —even when they vary in degree—as worthy of attention and response. Limiting a category will lead people to give priority only to those more extreme cases.
The crucial point here is not about harm. It is the more general point that language use affects perception and action. This is where using “love” so broadly comes back into focus. When love comes to include our sandwiches and strangers’ outfits, we give and prioritize attention and action to a wider category of things, even when we still know the differences between them.
However, here the analogy between harm and love breaks in an important way that shows what is really at stake when we misuse the word, “love.” The difference between “love” and “like” isn’t a matter of degree in the way harm is. It’s a difference in kind. When you like something, you want to engage in that thing, be around it, keep talking about it, and so on. When you love someone or something, it’s not simply that you just want more or feel more. You invest yourself in the subject or object of your love, and this investment unfolds through how you speak, act, and show up over time, shaping your identity.
Love is other-directed. It involves attention, commitment, and a willingness to give (and sometimes sacrifice) for something or someone beyond any immediate gratification. Love asks something of us. Yet, when we say, “I love this” to mean “I like this a lot,” the focus changes from the relationship to one’s personal satisfaction. We go from commitment to consumption. In this way, semantic inflation may actually reinforce a change in how we love.
In a recent (albeit small) study, investigators discovered that “increases in expressing love led to increased feelings of being loved over time; however, increases in felt love did not lead to increases in expressing love." While there may be several ways to interpret why this is the case, one thing is for sure: For love, the more you give, the more you get, but not the other way around. Of course, this may not be true in every case. People do find themselves in one-sided or bad relationships, whether platonic or romantic, but let’s not assume bad relationships are the rule and good ones the exception.
When using “love” in an exaggerated way becomes our default for speaking, it subtly trains us to approach the world—including other people—in terms of what they provide for us. We become more selfish.
We also become lonelier, despite how many people and things we love in our lives. Loneliness is not simply the absence of people. It is often the absence of meaningful relationships—of being seen, understood, and valued. When loving relationships are framed by what people do for us, each person sees the relationship as lacking rather than imagining what they could be doing to strengthen it.
Reclaiming a richer understanding of love doesn’t require policing our language, but it does require us to recognize the difference between liking something because we enjoy it and loving something in a way that shapes how we live.
psych. today
