If the question is “how did I meet your mother,” this graph reveals how much the answer has changed since 1930

Allow me an indiscreet question if you have a partner: how did you meet? A quick review around me gives me some answers like “class”, also others like “common friends” and in many cases Tinder would come to the fore. Well, and I also know of some cases of Twitter or even forum sharing. I am a millennial and so is the majority of my environment. If I asked this same question to my mother or if I asked it to my grandmother (if she were alive), I might find the same answers, but the proportions would change.

However, for 20 years there has been one way of dating that overwhelmingly prevails over the rest, considering “success” as having a partner: internet wins by a landslide.

Although like me you can do that quick review of your environment, there is someone who has done it more and better (statistically speaking): a team from Stanford University has repeated this study titled “How the couples meet and stay together” for several years that, although you can read, James Eagle has turned it into a visual resource to analyze how this modus operandi of flirting has changed over time: a very revealing one minute video.

This video covers almost a century of dating habits: from 1930 to 2024 and it includes classic options such as friends, family, in a bar, at work, neighbors, at university or school, at church and of course, on the internet. Obviously, in the 1930s and subsequent decades, the Online option was a huge zero. But be careful because in 1981 it started timidly with 0.01%.

In the 30s, the best way to flirt was for your cousin to introduce you to your future partner (followed by friends and school): the family as a matchmaker which lasted until 1944, at which time it was superseded by Friendships. As leisure options begin to become popular and women enter the workforce, we see how “at work” or “in a bar” gain ground until they are able to share the podium with your friends back in the 80s.

How the democratization of the internet changed dating

The 90s is a critical moment: online begins a meteoric rise that consolidates it as the most infallible method to find a partner in 2011, displacing those eternal friendships that have been helping us flirt since time immemorial.

As striking as the rise and total consolidation of the internet is the drastic fall of all other options: in the last 10 years we have gone from only friendships holding the type with a 20% share to that in 2024, the year of the end of video, flirting online is consolidated as the quintessential method with more than 60% of the pie. Being introduced to your partner by your colleagues happens in only one in 10 cases, something that makes sense in an increasingly individualistic society, which complicates even making new friends.

If you are a single person, it is clear that apps are the place to find dates, according to this study. However, dating apps are no longer as convincing, especially to new generations: this Evenbrite report dating back to 2024 reveals how Gen Z and millennials are starting to get tired of the format.

Because although they continue to flirt online, it’s not like before: They prefer to ask for Instagram than to ask for a date by Tinder. Fear of “public failure” is killing traditional flirting. However, the Internet as a dating method remains stronger than ever: because before apps existed, we were already dating in the most unexpected places. Without going any further, in the mythical Terra chat.

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Cover | James Eagle