| Field | Dating, Social Interaction |
| Went Obsolete | Late 1990s |
| Made Obsolete By | Online Dating sites, Myspace, Facebook |
| Knowledge Assumed | How to dial a telephone |
| When useful | When singles bars just didn't cut it… |
Phone-based dating services have been around since the 1970s and increased in popularity in the 1980s as degrees of social interaction over the phone became more accepted. Such services started as largely manual processes, where people filled out a questionnaire and selected potential dates based on other peoples' answers to the same questionnaire. The dating service would then facilitate contact between two interested parties, who then might agree to go on a date. Eventually the matchmaking process was computerized and much of the process was automated through a phone system.
At this point, people had to select matches based on little more than the answers from their questionnaires and the sound of their voice.
As the Internet grew in popularity in the late 1990s, online dating websites began to appear. These had the advantage of also allowing people to see pictures of potential matches and upload pictures of themselves. The use of phone-based services declined as Internet usage became more commonplace.