Dating: What's the Point?

In today's world, dating is a very loose term.  Dating has a different meaning for nearly everyone; some consider dating casual (hooking up) and others consider dating to be serious, as if marriage is the next step.  Neither opinion is incorrect; I believe that the difference in opinions is because dating has changed throughout the generations.  People my parents' age would consider dating to be a more serious thing, because that is how they were raised.  However, teenagers are exposed to all different kinds of social media that portray dating as a very sexual thing.  Nearly every TV show shows casual hook-ups between characters that barely know each other.  However, this leads to another question, which is what is considered a hook up?  In this society, hooking up is another vague term; for some it means kissing and for others it means sex.  Many people do consider hook-ups as drunken sex.  Like dating, I think the definition of a hook-up depends on the age of the person defining it.  For example, I know that my mom uses the term "hook-up" to mean "meeting-up."  After a night out with my friends, she will always ask me who I've hooked up with.  I think that for teenagers, hooking-up is less sexual (making-out) but once one advances into college, hooking-up turns into sex.  In the end, I believe that dating and hooking-up are both very vague terms that depend on each individual generation.