To explore the digital issues resulting from online dating, we traveled through times back to over 300 years ago, to see how our “grand-grand-grand-grandparents” find love without the internet and smartphones.
According to history professor H.G. Cocks, the very first personal advertisement was printed in 1695, which helped a 30-year-old British bachelor to find eligible wives - quoting 'good young gentlewoman that has a fortune of £3,000" (equivalent to roughly £300,000 today!).
How people date 100 years ago?
In the early 1900s, personal advertisements were popular especially in areas with low populations and the harsh realities of rural life without a partner in agricultural societies. 100 years ago during WW1, it’s very common for lonely and homesick soldiers to seek companionship by having pen pals, given the social pressure to get married by 21.
As we fast forward to 1965 by time machine, the first computer dating service Operation Match was created by some Harvard undergrads. For US$3, users could answer questionnaires and receive a list of potential matches. Maybe that’s how our grandparents met? :P
From Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 in the 20th Century
As we entered the 1990s, America Online, Prodigy and eventually Craigslist offered chat rooms, forums and online classifieds were common ways for singles to find their partners as well.
This is when Web 1.0 is gradually progressing to Web 2.0 with chat rooms running by user-generated content.
Followed by the launch of match.com in 1995, ICQ was founded in the following year, and soon became the most popular platforms for connecting with anyone globally. In the old days, people were only able to connect with their peers within a tribe/social circle, or make use of centralized resources like a dating agency.
But with ICQ and emails, thanks to the successful movie <You've got mail> (1998) as a milestone, we’ve progressed to a network society no longer bound by geographical constraints. Break through the hierarchy, and making connections to anyone in all dimensions possible.
Share your grandparents' love stories!
It’s been a long way we’ve come this far! Next time, I’ll talk about how the change of dating tools has changed the way we date in the 21st century since Tinder and Coffee Meets Bagel were launched ten years ago. If you’ve heard love stories from your grandparents, leave us a comment!
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