Algorithm, algorithm, make me a match

Online dating has been huge for years now. As instant messaging jumped in to supplement the overly formal email, people could be more candid (and flirty) in real-time with the added benefit of anonymity. When Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks fell in love on AOL in 1998’s rom-com hit You’ve Got Mail, the internet chat room had cemented itself as a permanent fixture in the worldwide phenomenon of dating.

Along with the changes in how we chat as friends, family, colleagues, teammates and competitors, the process of finding a date has turned increasingly screen-based. Much like the workplace benefitted from the introduction of the personal computer, the PC gave lonely hearts a chance to meet their romantic counterparts.

Love at first site

Hundreds of dating sites found success as the internet matured. Matchmaker, Kiss.com, FriendFinder, PlentyofFish and other sites became common online areas to meet your soulmate. Even the more pious got their game on with Christian dating site ChristianMingle and Jewish site JDate.

A mention is as good as a rose

Then the social networks got involved. Many social networks also function as sort of quasi-dating sites where strangers can meet through shared friends or by just scrolling through other users. Although Facebook and Twitter aren’t your usual matchmaking platforms, they can serve that purpose among others (see Tinder below).

Facebook deserves an extra mention in this game of online love. The classic ‘poke’ function that I innocently overused in my early teens is no longer as popular as it was in the late 2000s. Then there’s also the Hollywood story of the original intent behind Facebook’s creation, but we won’t entertain that here. (Okay, maybe here.)

True love – find it on the app store

As the years have trundled on, internet dating has transformed along with shifts in technology and cultural preferences. We now see our world of potential significant others anew as internet dating becomes increasingly mobile and app-based.

Among the most popular apps are OKCupid, Zoosk and the more upfront Bang With Friends. Tinder deserves a special mention as it uses a combination of Facebook friends, GPS and a personalized profile to set the parameters for who sees who. Swipe left for not interested, swipe right for true love?

The future of digital dating

A clever Tinder ad was recently released showing the company’s view on the trajectory of digital dating: it was easy in the beginning at around 100,000 BC, it became difficult in the middle because of arranged marriages, prejudice, and multiple phobias, and finally it has become easy again thanks to the freedom digital individuality provides.

Season 4 of award-winning sci-fi series Black Mirror possibly showed us the next move in using tech to find the ‘one’. The episode Hang the DJ, named after a 1980s lyric by The Smiths, featured a world where everyone walked around with little pods that answered questions about life… and determined their next partner and relationship length.

The pod worked on an algorithm that gathered and interpreted data from each person’s relationships with the end goal of matching them with their soulmates. Although the plot, in typical Black Mirror fashion, took a squeaky turn towards the end, the underlying message hinted at greater reliance on algorithms and machine learning in the age-old business of matchmaking.

Digital dating has changed vastly since the first chat room hook-ups in the 1990s, but the eternal search for companions remains a common social activity. From simple matchmaking services to Black Mirror’s premonitory speaking pod, the future of dating is undoubtedly leaning towards ever-complicated algorithms. Anyone who has read Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World will probably agree.