Computer Dating in the Classifieds: Complicating the Cultural History of Matchmaking by Machine

Abstract

abstract:This article looks at the phenomenon of computer dating through its appearance in the classified ads of the Village Voice. Popular between the late 1960s and mid-1970s, computer dating services used questionnaire data to match singles. Highlighting new perspectives drawn from the classifieds, this article offers a cultural history of computer dating in the United States, charting its rise and fall and the shifting public sentiments around it. The article argues that computer dating should be understood as a media phenomenon and demonstrates how computer dating ads complicate teleological narratives about contemporary dating technologies, offering an alternative history of how computers became "personal."